I didn’t get the job that asked me for my college gpa They said they went with an internal candidate and never did get around to interviewing me in spite of asking for work samples and gpa
Today I had another interview and it was bad enough that hat I actually emailed the recruiter to let them know how unprofessional it was.
Here’s a thing. Engineers think they’re smarter than what they are. It’s actualky a huge gap in engineering. People have ideas and knowledge but no skills to get those ideas in practice and some how it’s everyone else’s fault.
So interviewing for an engineer position being conducted by another engineer is dicey.
Today I interviewed for a Black Belt job The company is trying to implement RPA which is nothing more than plugging Visio to some automated controls and creating process flow maps off programmable logic.
And when I explained that I have experience doing all of those items short of the proprietary software that they use he goes ... so no robotics. Tell me what the R2 variable is in regression analysis. I’d have to think about it, r tends to be range wrong. Tell me what the definition of standard deviation is At that point I gave him the answer and got off the phone
How I put it to the recruiter and how I’ll put that sequence of questions is like this
“This may come across as technical jargon but the closest parallel I can think of is asking a recruiter during an interview if they know what the k in 401k means and then following up with asking them if they understand what money is”
I’ve had bad interviews before. I’ll have more in the future. But that was just rude. I don’t expect anything to come of that email, but at least it didn’t just live there in that small conversation.
------ “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” -Albert Camus
3. "Bad interviews are one thing, but interview me for the job" In response to Reply # 1
Don’t pop quiz me on shit that’s foundational to the profession as a knowledge block but overall irrelevant. I could’ve never gotten out of college without proving I knew that information or stayed employed or become accredited.
------ “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” -Albert Camus
2. "you ever fall into the 'casual interview' trap?" In response to Reply # 0
like you're having a good conversation, and the vibe is good, and the person doing the interview is super friendly. Then afterwards you realize that they didn't do a great job of asking question related to your job and your experience,etc.? And that you should have steered the convo back towards business?
Yeah, i did that, and it may have cost me a gig i was pretty into. I also may have just priced myself out of it, and if so that's fine too.
In a generation of swine, the one-eyed pig is king. -Hunter S. Thompson
5. "Haha I got my current job by NOT steering the convo back." In response to Reply # 2
I had kind of already made abundantly clear that I was very qualified for the position, via the phone interview and the resume/cover letter/questionnaire I had answered.
So the in-person interview (I had 2) were pretty brief in terms of job-related questions and answers. Then in both we spent the rest of the time just kind of shooting the shit about the industry and how we all ended up there, etc. So I guess the "casual" part was still sort of related to work, but just not very specific to the job I was interviewing for.
But I asked all the questions I had and got them sufficiently answered during both interviews, so for me it was kinda whatever at that point. If it was gonna hurt anyone it would've been them.
Honestly if a prospective employer intentionally tries to trick you into casual convo, expecting *you* to steer it back on track that's kind of fucked up. Interviews are stressful, and I can't imagine a scenario where the employer could use the results of that type of trickery/experiment to determine if a prospect is fit for the job. But maybe someone has evidence proving that it could be a useful exercise for a hiring manager, not sure.
I'd have to think that you just priced yourself out of the gig, that being the case.
>or like is said, maybe they got someone cheaper. who knows.
21. "When the conversation goes casual, that's a good time..." In response to Reply # 2
...to start interviewing the interviewer. I start asking questions about the job, what technologies *they* prefer, what major projects are "we" dealing with right now, where did you go to school, etc.
My worst interview was a dude that asked me about 2-3 standard questions then looked like he was DONE. A lot of awkward silence and I was fresh out of college. Told myself that from then on I'd attempt to take over any interview that was going left, instead of riding it out. I probably come off too strong for a lot of jobs I've interviewed for, but it's that "well, would I really want to work there?" thing then.
25. "I fell into a similar trap going through rounds of interviews" In response to Reply # 2
I had 4 interviews with progressively more senior people in the company except the last 2 were switched so that the partner in the company was 3rd and my potential boss was last.
By the time I got through my first 2 interviews I was already fried. I think I sold myself well to them but, ultimately, they weren't that relevant.
With the partner, my explanations weren't crisp and my questions were pretty blah. Truthfully, I just wasn't used to being in a conversation for 2 hours straight so I was mentally spent. I probably should've found a way to mentally collect myself.
I thought the interview with my potential boss would be the most important but it turned out she was the easiest. She just wanted to see cultural fit so we talked over lunch about nothing too serious.
10. "Mind puzzles" In response to Reply # 0 Fri Nov-16-18 03:45 PM by Stadiq
Once had an interview where dude asked me a few standard questions, then proceeded to give me a series of mind puzzles to “see how you think on your feet”
Not situations I might face in the job- mind puzzles he clearly found online.
I was so thrown off because I’ve never been tempted to say “nevermind I’m not interested” 5 minutes into an interview.
In general, I cringe at bad interviews because it is an obvious preview of what it would be like to work there.
Like, could you imagine working with dude you described?
11. "I fucking could. I would LOVE to undercut his ass first chance" In response to Reply # 10
I hate people that build in redundancy to keep their jobs Making technical shit sound too technical and then making the project functionally unworkable. Fuck those people. Like this dick hole is running around calling it Robotics Process Automations When it’s really just a process flow map, run through programmable logic, that then populates fields that are already determined in a third software By the time they quasi automate this, they’ll have burned years, and our profession will look bad because of this idiots ego trip. Fuck him
------ “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” -Albert Camus
16. "Engineers like him make my field look bad" In response to Reply # 14
And there are plenty out there like him. They have all of the projected savings and controls and ideas fleshed out and then toss it to someone else to implement. So they have huge BLIND spots when it comes to application Dude couldn’t get through a 20 minute interview (for which he was ten minutes late) without passive aggressively questioning my intelligence? That makes a terrible engineer and I can’t imagine how many bridges he’s burned internally I interviewed with the NIH some years back and the dude kept going on and on how he was smarter than Demming himself and disagreed with the principals. Dude was blind sided when I turned down the job. Industrial engineering is not hard work analytically, 80 percent is the sale and spread.
------ “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” -Albert Camus
12. "went to an interview" In response to Reply # 0
I do insurance claims work.. so questions about the job are pretty standard.
then the guy doing the interview goes "so what are your 3 greatest weaknesses?
I have been asked for one before but never 3. After I answer and finish with the interview he asked if I had questions
I asked him what are 3 greatest weaknesses in this department?
then I asked him if he could change 3 things about working here what would he change.
he fumbled through some half ass answers but I knew they were not serious about hiring at that point.
You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
I used to work in claims and still work in tandem with claims folks often in my current job, so I can only imagine the types of answers he came up with haha
>I do insurance claims work.. so questions about the job are >pretty standard. > >then the guy doing the interview goes "so what are your 3 >greatest weaknesses? > >I have been asked for one before but never 3. After I answer >and finish with the interview he asked if I had questions > >I asked him what are 3 greatest weaknesses in this >department? > >then I asked him if he could change 3 things about working >here what would he change. > >he fumbled through some half ass answers but I knew they were >not serious about hiring at that point.
17. "Not to be a dick but maybe you should know that" In response to Reply # 0
When I interview folk I always ask technical questions. Not definitions like that mind you but questions to expose the depth of your knowledge beyond what the resume might say. So if you're a data engineer I'm going to ask what algo you'd use in situation x. If you're a full stack dev I'm going to ask what your favorite framework is and why it's efficient. More than actually testing your knowledge I'm trying to gauge your enthusiasm for the work. The merket is filled with people with certifications and boot camp degrees with no real passion for the work. The glint in your eye when it comes to talking shop is usually all that I need, qualifications aside.
█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃ Big PEMFin H & z's "I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles
"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."
18. "I do know that. But not in a 20 minute off cuff time frame" In response to Reply # 17 Fri Nov-16-18 04:47 PM by MEAT
It’s not applicable to your day to day Week to week Month to month or year to year part of work as an ie And focus on that part demonstrates a bad ie not a good one What makes a good industrial engineer is do you understand the concepts of continuous improvement and how can you imply them to industries outside of manufacturing
Also even your examples are more in depth than what he asked He didn’t ask how I’d apply regression analysis He asked me what a variable in an equation is
Like right now today I could explain to you conceptually the theory of relativity but off cuff I couldn’t tell you what c is
------ “There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” -Albert Camus
22. "This reminds me of an Amazon interview I had" In response to Reply # 0
The interviewer gave me an algorithmic problem that involved graphs (the data structure) and legit got angry at one of my responses:
Q: How do you do know this algorithm will terminate? A: Because it's running on every node in the graph, and the graph is a tree, so no node will get hit twice. Eventually there will be no more nodes and so it will terminate.
Q: But how do you know... A: ...it's a tree....
Q: But how... A: ....tree...
Me: dude, respectfully IDK what answer you're looking for Him: It terminates because THERE'S NO CYCLES !!!
My interest died right there because trees are literally defined as connected graphs without cycles. And it was clear that I knew that and was using that. If he wanted me to say cycle he should've asked a clarifying question, not the same god damn one.
24. "I noticed a theme with all the trick interviews" In response to Reply # 0
Casual should have been turned serious, pop quiz type, etc was that they were all for positions where I was at the highest range for salary. I'll take that into account next time.
Taking shots in the dark/that's a bad call Going straight for your head/ gotta saw it off
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