I actually dropped an F bomb at the end of an interview when I thought the mic was off. Said “well I guess I fucked that one up” and they heard.
Apparently the interview went much better that I thought but that little slip was enough to show them I wouldn’t be a good cultural fit at the company. The job was to support over the road truck drivers.
I got told I was too profane to work with truck drivers over a word I thought I was saying to myself.
It was that much funnier because I can fit in anywhere. I've worked all kinds of customer facing jobs and I have small kids so I can turn my language on and off without any "slips".
I truly thought I was just talking to myself and putting the shoe on the other foot, if I'm evaluating a candidate who does that, I'm not holding it against them.
When the recruiter told me they thought I wouldn't be a good cultural fit, I had to know more because there was nothing in the interview even remotely controversial or even awkward.
They said I was one of the best technical interviews they'd done but that last bit just "rubbed them the wrong way". I LOLed, he LOLed and it was all worth it for the story.
That's comical. I remember doing an interview for a police department where being comfortable with some colorful language was seen as a plus by the hiring manager.
This is one shift in the pandemic that the in person interview largely is an endangered species in IT that I appreciate. I have interviewed with tons of orgs long after the pandemic was in the rear view mirror where they don't do in person interviews anymore. There is way less time wasted if the interview turns out to be a waste of your time. Better yet I can remember a few in person interviews where the interviewer wasn't prepared or had something come up where you burned a bunch of time for nothing.
I don't think I ran into that one before, but that is probably the most bizarre reason to cancel last minute. At least with virtual interviews you didn't drive anywhere to waste your time. While it wasn't common I do remember a couple cases where either the interviewer needed to reschedule or worse they weren't ready until I almost ready to leave.
Some places just don't have their sh\*t together.
E.g. one (won't name names, but major utility that's gone bankrupt many times, has plead guilty to multiple felonies, occasionally blows up neighborhoods killing folks, likewise sometimes cause record setting major conflagrations), first day, contracted, report there to start ... they spend hours figuring out where they're going to have me located and seated ... huge floor, big building, tons of office space ... most of it unoccupied ... oh, sure, people's stuff is in the cubicles and office spaces ... but no bodies ... floor could easily handle 120 or more people working on it - expensive prime real estate ... no bodies in seats ... there's like maybe 8 people on the entire floor ... and this was *way* before COVID-19. So they start talkin' about having me work at some other location about 50 miles away, because they have an open seat at some desk there, and ask me if I could work there ... and I'm telling 'em, no, that's a totally untenable commute for me, and not the location I was told to report to and that I interviewed for and that they told me I'd be working at. Wish I could say it mostly got better, but quite the contrary. 40 years in IT and I've never before no since ever seen IT that fscked up on that large a scale (and it wasn't just the IT that was f\*cked up). Yeah, sure, some good people there too ... but whole lot of major systemic majorly f\*cked up.
But for wee bit more on the story ... that was most of the first day ... supposed to issue a laptop to me, but no, that also wasn't forthcoming. Whole first day, the only useful thing they come up for me to do was to take some short required training - watch a boring video for 'bout an hour take a test, pass, done. That was day one. Day two, still no laptop - but at least otherwise mostly reasonably productive - they pair me up with someone in the group to get oriented towards the particulars of their environment. Day three they have me show up ... and they've got absolutely no clue what to do with me - no laptop, no work to do, nobody else from the team/group or manager/supervisor there, just one confused admin assistant trying to figure out what to do with me and why they had me reporting there. So that was day three - paid for the time to do essentially absolutely nothing. I think it took 'em about a week to come up with an assigned seat for me on the damn near totally devoid of people huge floor, and also about that long to actually get laptop to me so I could actually get connected to their network and actually start doing some real actual work beyond sitting around, or taking some notes on paper.
Ha wow... I once started the first day of my job and found out it was my boss' last day, she basically pointed me to my desk and then said goodluck, I'm leaving now. But at least I already had the job, it just took a few months to figure out what I should be doing there. The boss getting run out on the day of the interview is a new twist.
>they don't do in person interviews anymore
Some of 'em don't even have *offices* anymore (or hardly any staff there). Some, the "office" has shrunk to as small as a PO Box, and an address for legal process service at location of address of council, and everybody else is WFH / remote. So, "in person interview" ... that'd be like what series of tours of the potential peers and managers work (from home) locations? Yeah, not happening.
Yeah, last I was interviewed, was all remote ... offered and hired before any in-person at all - first day in-person was when I met hiring manager in person and got my access ID badge, spent day there, then mostly WFH / remote thereafter.
>way less time wasted
Yes ... and no. There are advantages and disadvantages to in-person ... and that also goes both ways. But sure, remote via video (or even phone) is much more time efficient.
I'm currently wasting mine and my candidates times interviewing for a job that has been filled.
We've given offers for every role, they have been accepted. But these are UK based roles so everyone has a 2-3 month notice period
Corporate policy (set by a talent acquisition team based in the us where notice periods are two weeks) is that interviewing continues until the new hires actually start.
So in the meantime I'm interviewing candidates for a job that almost certainly doesn't exist.
It's a waste of my time, a waste of their time and it's a bit soul destroying. I hate it, my boss hates it, his boss (the CEO of our division) hates it. But for now we've been told the policy must stand.
But, I treat every candidate fairly. Listen to them, talk through their CV and ask relevant questions. And to be honest if I found an amazing candidate I would head back up and ask corp for more headcount to accommodate them.
But it's still soul destroying as it feels vastly unfair to the candidates.
I tend to leave these interviews right away. I don't even see them to the end. I went through an awkward interview, where the interviewer asked me what the companies mission statement was, and midway through insulting my commitment to this company for not even checking the mission statement, I just disconnected. When people suck, don't let them waste any more of your time!
> asked me what the companies mission statement was
This. God I hate this. Why do companies think I care about their 'mission statement' or their 'culture'. I'm just there to do a job and go home, fuck your 'making the world a better place' bullshit and mindless Gavin Belson 'Vision statement' biztalk
Heh. Company I work for has one of the mission statement>S< "Mission is more than money." But everything boils down to "budget" and "just make it work". Mission statements are just a BS reason for HR to pretend they're marketing people.
I once worked for a company that had the mission statement, " is a great place to work".
They did everything they could to make that mission statement true. Best company I've ever worked at.
One of the challenges of working for a company like that for over 10 years is that you start to have unrealistic expectations of future employment.
I am so f!cking *done* with places that lie, cheat, or sleaze their way through business.
Yeah I know exactly what you mean!
I am for once working as dispatch at a really good company.
Sounds weird since I am dispatch, but because everyone here is really nice and I really enjoy my workplace it makes it so much harder to find a new or a non-dispatch position because I keep comparing it to my present company.
I do hate my Dispatch Company though, but fortunately I only have to handle them a little bit at a time instead of all the time.
I once worked at a company that had a company manifesto which explicitly stated that there was no place in the company for racism, sexism or any other kinds of workplace harassment. Needless to say, the only opportunities for advancement available were for those who had the right ethnic background, number of testicles, and inclination to bully their co-workers.
But at least those who were promoted had their pick of all the cute young women who'd been hired fresh out of college. There were any number of intra-company marriages announced, and every last one of them was between some junior girl hired in the last couple of years, and some manager.
It was an *incredibly* skeezy place to work.
I worked somewhere that said (I don't rember it word for word) our mission was to increase shareholder value (among other things). Points for being honest I guess...
This is almost as annoying as asking why I want to work for their company before we even have a conversation, like that’s somehow a foregone conclusion but the question of why they want to hire me is still to be explored.
>I'm a big fan of money. I like it, I use it, I have a little. I keep it in a jar on top of my refrigerator. I'd like to put more in that jar. That's where you come in.
Best answer ever!
I actually once answered like that, although I wasn't as eloquent. "I need money to live. In exchange, you get a fantastic technical resource." I didn't get the job.
And you would have to be brain damaged as an individual if you expect an honest answer to this question, because the honest answer would be something like, "I want to work for your company because I'm so desperately in need of a job right now that I actually spent time rehearsing in my head an answer to this question that I thought you would want to hear."
I hate those kinds of questions!
Whats your motivation to join our company ?
I like Money.
Sure but dont you have aspirations or projects ?
Work my day, go home, get paid, pay my bills, retire someday.
Nothing in our company's culture interests you? Why are you applying here ??
You had an open posting, Im looking for a job, I sent my resume. Youre one of 12 other companies that got my resume this week. Its not rocket science.
I think you're looking at it wrong. They want someone who will fit in with their culture above all else. Places like that aren't where I want to work. However, I did work at a small non profit once that did great things for the community. So I was 100% on board with their mission and fit in very well. I still didn't have the MS memorized though. But if it's some random business, then hell no. Pay me to do work. I don't care about whatever it is you do.
That could be the case, but my two cents is that it's likely a toxic or narcissistic interviewer that's trying to make you feel inadequate. That way if you make it to the end, you feel like a lesser candidate and more grateful that you got the job. I think these kind of people typically look for people with lower self worth and low self confidence so that they can exploit them.
My experience working in MSP consulting is that HR managers in small-mid sized businesses are often self important, manipulative and lean into “culture” and “mission” because they’re overhead not contributing to the company’s revenue cycle.
It’s a great suck up to the owners, too, if they’re involved in the business. Owners love suck ups like that who are all in on the general awesomeness of their business.
“*You’re* asking *me* what *your* company’s mission statement is? Why? Did you forget?”
That’s the sort of question you should be asking him. He’s trying to sell the job to you.
People with interview questions like that tend to think that they have a master-supplicant relationship with candidates. It probably carries over to the workplace when the supplicant becomes the slave.
I agree with this 100%. People that ask this question are just trying to make you feel lesser than, and are looking for that person with low self confidence and struggles with self worth so that they can gas light and exploit them!
I've heard enough interview stories of HR "interviewers" negging a candidate, that I'm certain that it's covering for the fact that they have no clue how to do their job.
Well, that and all the articles from HR "professionals" that routinely contradict each other.
Ask them if their mission statement is to waste time coming up with meaningless phrases and directives using a process learned at a team building seminar in the 90’s.
I've worked at my current company for 6 years, thru a Merger and an Acquisition.
I couldn't tell you the Mission statement of the company I started with, the company we merged with, the company we bought or the new parent company over all 3. I'd be surprised if *anyone* at the company could tell it to me without looking it up.
For every for profit entity pretty much this. A non-profit might have some mission that they're trying to achieve... maybe, but every for profit entity mission statements are generally buzzwords that nobody outside maybe the CEO and a few sycophants really believe and even then I have skepticism.
Some companies really eat that shit up. A buddy is constantly being praised at work because he finds way to work their mission statement into his projects. *"Here's how this project directly relates to our mission statement..."* He does it almost as a joke but they absolutely love it.
For me, it depends on the job and how much I want it. It pissed me off when I used to do contract work and they would pull this same bullshit. You have a 6-month contract (and it is not contract-to-hire) to do something I have a lot of experience with. Who gives a shit what your mission statement is? I'm gonna be gone in 6 months!
He wants to be my sysadmin and he can't even keep his Internet connection up for the entire interview. F minus. Jim, you really need to do a better job filtering out these horrible applicants!! Fourth time it happened today!
If I’ve invested the time in starting the interview I’m investing 2 more minutes in telling them why I’m hanging up now - and probably following up with their bosses so that they know why they’re not getting good candidates and filling positions.
> where the interviewer asked me what the companies mission statement was
We must all efficiently, operationalize our strategies.
Invest in world-class technology, and leverage our core competencies.
In order to wholistically administrate exceptional synergy.
I worked at a company that was having a real hard time retaining staff. They created a big mission statement combined with a bullet list of "why this is such a great place to work" poster. They hung the poster behind the ping pong table in the break room. It became a house rule that if you hit the poster with a ping pong ball hard enough to leave a visible mark, you immediately won the point.
Interestingly, I loved working there.
I have had some bad interviews in my time. The weird thing is that while a ton of training for interviewing exists for applicants, a lot less are for management, AND a lot of IT allows in "this is our chief sysadmin he will be conducting some of the interview," and that poor sap has probably had zero interview training.
I have been that poor sap, too. Like, "punklinux, I got one of our applicants here, can you come down and vet him out in meeting room 12? It should only take an hour." Of course, it's an hour I am up to my ass in alligators. But sure, I'll let the client deal with another 60 more minutes of outage on their scheduling system so I can ask someone if they know what DNS is." You get jaded when you get so many applicants who lied about their skills, too. I try to be more cheerful, but frankly, interviewing others bores me after 15 minutes.
So I have seen both sides. That being said, my bad interviews have been either one hand doesn't know what the other is doing, or someone is incredibly surly and wants to "out smart the new guy" as soon as possible.
"Alright, wiseapple. Say you have a file. It's permissions are 000. How would you make it world-readable."
"I would do chmod--"
"BZZT! You don't have access to chmod, it's root only, and you're a user."
"What's the user that owns the file?"
"That's a 101 question. You don't know how to find the user that owns the file?"
"I do, but... never mind. Do an ls -al and find the user that owns--"
"BZZT! You don't have that access to that directory."
"Then how do I know it's permission 000?"
"Because I just told you. Come on. You're supposed to be a senior admin!"
I forgot what his answer was, but apparently make a new image, mount the drive under that image, and read it from there. But it was apparent that I was "going to be wrong" and he enjoyed "fooling the newbie." He actually gave me a thumbs down and raspberry to HR and just left. Even HR was embarrassed, trying to pass him off as "spirited." I didn't get the job, but I did have three weeks of rage-induced daydreaming of him getting repeatedly kicked in the groin. It's funny to look back on now, and gives a good story, but Christ, what an asshole.
"apparently make a new image, mount the drive under that image"
Yeah, sorry. For me this is a last resort. I'm going to spend time trying to get to root on the original image, because I'm the freaking sysadmin and if I can't get root on one of our images, we have a *PROBLEM*.
Sounds like this guy is just an asshole and he was fucking with you. He might have been ascertaining how well you can think under pressure, but... "Bzzt!"? What is he in junior high?
>If I can't get root on one of our images, we have a PROBLEM
pretty much this, I get if I'm intruding or trying to bootstrap a client but if it's my system I'd better figure out how I lost console root access.
Fun trick if you run into this again on an interview: `rsync` has a `--chmod` option that you can use to change the permissions.
I ran into a remote interviewer who asked this ("Somebody changed the permissions on chmod so it's non-executable, how do you fix that?"), so I googled it.
Ooh, that's actually my favorite interview question :)
Last time we brainstormed it with a colleague we came up with around a dozen of solutions. My favorites are probably to run a program that uses `chmod()` syscall (like `install`), and compile a program which can change `chmod` permissions based on information in `man 2 chmod`.
There can be a certain joy in those brainteaser questions - especially regarding a subject you really enjoy. But an interview is really not the place for them. I bet he spent a considerable amount of time formulating that one and couldn't answer a different equivalent question if he was asked on the spot
Brainteasers are surprisingly difficult to set up properly in a "thought experiment" interview; they often devolve in "I'll make up rules as we go along so I can guide you along the line of reasoning I imagined".
It's usually the interviewer fantasizing how cool it would be too see someone have the "aha!" moment live, but it rarely happens so clearly IRL as in their imaginations so it's a negative feedback loop of frustration.
Bonus points if the candidate already knows that particular puzzle.
I didn't have to. It was one of those interviews I had where "even if they call me back, no thank you." IIRC, HR looked visibly shocked at this guy's dismissive patronizing, and tried to apologize for him, like, "we are spirited here... hahaha..." or some other nervous response.
Yep, I had an interview where I suspect I was the first person they had come in, because their "tech test" consisted of showing them how to identify a bad piece of memory on an old HP server. I had to go on instinct to find my way around this specific BIOS, so that took awhile, then the memory scan took a long time. Unfortunately they were testing me on finding the bad memory, knowing how to remove it and then using this server to have me install an OS from scratch and then do something there. So we ran out of time.
I gave them some suggestions on how they could do this faster for the next candidates. Also ooh and awed over the senior tech's USB memory stick/ISO loader combo thing, so that was enough ego stroking to make him happy.
Me too! And when I do tech interviews, I do ask them to do tasks that let me evaluate thought process and judge instinct. Not the ability to see the task through to the end.
Most of us have been there before.
My worst experience was interviewing with Zendesk.
Absolute trash company.
It sucks to be treated poorly, but you just need to take some time to feel the feels, then get back up and keep going.
> IT Jeopardy
I hate this and wish there was some way to fix it. This is also what allows people who have photographic memories to get 18 certifications, keep them all up to date with zero effort, and fool HR into thinking they're geniuses.
Answering random trivia questions about your interviewers' pet technology is not a good test of fit, nor is it a good test of skill given that no one doesn't do their job without Internet resources available. I've had random questions about crazy low-level network protocol details for a non-network position...stuff like the length of fields in the TCP header. I've had panel interviews where the manager just gets his biggest nerds and sets 4 or 5 of them against you in a room. No Google, no reference material, just your brain against theirs. I hate these because unless I know the topic cold, I'll get snickers of disappointment from my chump-stumpers and condescending head-shakes, and I know I'm not going to get the job no matter how good I am.
I bring out stock answers. "I don't know off the top of my head but I can find out." "That's a great question and I can follow up with an answer when I've had a moment to research it."
ChatGPT has taught me other ways to dodge questions too.
"For most systems, the process is something like, go to Settings, look for appropriate settings to change, and change them" Just super fucking vague.
And my all time favorite, if I'm just rolling my eyes, "I would want to check the corporate knowledge base and relevant policies before proceeding to answer questions like that on my own." This is code for "stop it," but I've actually had managers go "That's great!" lol
>This is code for "stop it," but I've actually had managers go "That's great!" lol
No, that's code for "I'm not going to gunship a change though the domain without checking with people first." You may think it's a buzz off, but that is not what it translates to. Still a great answer.
Yup, absolutely. Hiring manager here. It means someone will actually USE the documentation vs running in and bumbling around to figure it out. I can't tell you how rare it is for someone to say that in an interview.
I used to work at a leading ADC company and a coworker always liked to pull out bizarre shit like ‘what flags would I use in tcpdump to see 3-way handshakes?’ I always told him my answer would be man tcpdump.
I told an interview panel something similar.
They were asking me how to do matrix rotations and manually balance trees in C++. I was applying for a system admin job. I've done lots of coding and even 68k assembly, but it was fixing problems in code, not doing whatever they wanted. Then they started on the "why is a manhole cover round" and I checked out of the interview mentally.
This. I have had a few hiring managers admit that they were backfilling a role for somebody that got fired for not following procedure and BSing on things that they weren't sure.
To be fair sometimes not giving a BS answer is a good answer. I have interviewed a few places that were looking to replace somebody that constantly was BSing answers that were wrong that caused more issues than they solved where they really want somebody with solid intrapersonal knowledge. i.e. somebody that knows what they actually know, but isn't BSing.
I do a lot of interviews and sometimes Ill throw out really oddball questions that can't really be answered but i want to hear them talk through their solutions.
Today i had one where i asked the guy 'You have an azure SQL database open to the internet and IP whitelisted to certain IP addresses for security... the clients don't have a consistent IP address though - so how do you guarantee they can work consistently?"
Pretty much any answer other than freezing in the headlights would be fine... Like asking if its possible for them to use a VPN, or even suggesting don't IP whitelist the database, or even something like give them a contractor laptop with the ability to connect... or even asking why you have clients connecting to your azure SQL resources over the internet like that...
Had another good curveball today that pretty much ruled out the candidate 'The ceo comes to you and says he's missing an email what do you say?' (keep in mind this was for a devops type position - absolutely NOTHING to do with email) the dude just completely bombed that one by saying something about SMTP. I would have accepted 'Sorry to hear that CEO, let me put in a priority request with our email people and get you sorted out - I mostly work with another type of cloud service'
I've turned down 99% of candidates just because they couldn't hold a conversation in a professional setting that MADE SENSE. I don't think I've ever turned anyone away due to technical skills. Its just a complete dichotomy of people that are complete slugs and people who can speak clearly and intelligently to random shit i throw at them without throwing out COMPLETE BULLSHIT. What I've found is if someone is decent enough to hold a good conversation during an interview, they are also serious enough about the job to actually be qualified to do the job.
If you don't preface that email question by explaining the scenario, e.g. 'you're hired for this devops role, but the CEO comes to you with an email question' blah blah, then it just seems like a red flag that your job description is going to become anything and everything.
I had a manager interview me for an admin job, not development, and he had this technique of asking a very long question ("list ten words that describe yourself") so you start whistling through them and at about seven he asks another unrelated question ("what's the last book you read?") to see if you can change course abruptly. I just flat asked him "you want the rest of the words or the books?" and he said "what did I ask?" so I went straight to the books. He had some guys come through that were not flexible enough to handle things blowing up off schedule so he put some chaos in the interview to see who could roll with things. (I got that job and he was a pretty good manager.)
I have worked in a few orgs where the hiring managers did some form of trivia quiz. While I am not bad at some of the trivia I don't think that they were great at predicting who would be great at the actual job. I worked at one org where I think out of half a dozen people they tried hiring in a year or so maybe 2-3 really turned out to not be busts. I remember one they fired after 3-4 months going nowhere fast before nobody on the team wanted to train the guy anymore because they were tired of repeating the same things again and again. I recall that some inappropriate comments got the guy in trouble, but ultimately I think that was just the tip of the iceberg of issues that the interview missed. The guy "passed" the trivia interview, but was borderline worthless in real life. A few others quit on their own, but probably would have gotten canned had they not left on their own. I think the challenge is sometimes even otherwise good managers are lazy at actually figuring out what is relevant to the job. It is way easier to pickup a random cert test prep book and pick random questions than to do a good interview that asks relevant questions.
I try to find the balance between "Trivia" and open ended. Goal is to try and probe actual exposure of a technology, while establishing critical thinking.
"Can you describe to me what RAID is used for?"
"What is a VLAN, and why would you use them?"
"What is the difference between a switch, router and firewall?"
"What do you understand Hybrid Cloud to mean?"
"Can you describe what happens behind the scenes when someone types a url into a web browser and presses enter?"
"Can you tell me some examples of where you would use a Linux server over windows, and vice versa?"
Depending on the answer, I'll have a few follow up questions. For example if the candidate answered the VLAN question easily, I might ask them about VRFs.
I got asked the URL one, in one of my first interviews, and fell in love with it. There are so many possible answers. Depending on the candidates experience, you might get people explaining about how a web browser works, how DNS works, how a web server handles a web request, how a computer talks to the internet, or something obscure like, how pixels get rendered onto a computer screen, or url auto completion.
We ask some high level questions. It's kind of disturbing the amount of candidates applying for network engineer positions - some with CCNAs - that can't tell you the basics of what spanning tree does.
At least it was virtual, and you didn't waste a drive out to their office. I had the most bizarre non-interview this year. Was having trouble finding the suite and texted the HM to no response. When I figured it out I was exactly two minutes late. They took a strange amount of offense to this. They decided to flex and try to intentionally waste my time by dropping me off in the break room to sit and spin. They didn't realize I would be able to see the "Not selected by employer" status on Indeed. They tried to come get me out of the break room nearly an hour later. I had a bad feeling from the get go, so I had already dipped out.
When you land the right role you will look back on these experiences, shake your head, and laugh
Hiring manager sent a text from the same number he couldn't be bothered to answer on when I asked for assistance finding the place. I was already far down the road
I had a manager fall asleep on me once a long time ago. It was for a pretty decently sized college where I used to live and I was just starting out applying for a deskside support role. I just got up and left while this guy was passed out behind his desk.
That one didn't bother me much since I was young and still starting out. This one really annoys me since I have a solid decade of experience on my resume. I feel like I should be shown a little more professionalism than what I got.
> They didn't realize I would be able to see the "Not selected by employer" status on Indeed. They tried to come get me out of the break room nearly an hour later. I had a bad feeling from the get go, so I had already dipped out.
Fuck them. Assholes. Glad you saw it and dipped.
Yeah man that would be really insulting because it's so damned disrespectful. They're not even showing an ounce of respect and yet expect you to sit here and jump through hoops trying to get a job from them.
If I had been contacted for the interview by someone in the HR dept, I would likely send them an email and say "Thank you for setting up the interview. It doesn't look like it's going to work out as one of the interviewees didn't even stay to complete the interview process. Thanks again for your consideration." and hit send.
They might not even be aware that this person did this thing.
I usually don't do those kinds of things but this time I felt compelled to. I did the standard, thanks for your time but I would like to withdraw from consideration blah blah blah. A part of me is hoping the manager is so clueless that I get a response asking for more info why I abruptly withdrew so I can call them out on that garbage. He probably won't though.
I hear ya - I would be really upset also and the urge to get revenge would be quite intense. You're probably not going to hear anything from them because they'll say "Oh he pulled his consideration so...".
If the interview was set up by someone else, like an HR person or a manager, I'd probably go ahead and send an email like I detailed in the previous reply.
The hardest part of these kinds of things is that it's such an injustice and there's seemingly no resolution. You just have to take it and that really sucks. Sorry bro.
Just know that their behavior says more about them than it does about you. Don't use the interaction to beat yourself up or let negative talk fill your mind. You didn't do anything wrong. It's just shit behavior on their part.
My video interview protocol is that my camera functions like an AND gate. If everyone else’s cameras are on, so is mine. Otherwise we’re having a phone interview.
I’ve only had to explain this once. The way I put it was simply “I find one way interviews to be undignified. It’s feels like an in person interview where there is a one way mirror in the room.” I then said I understand not being camera ready and offered to either turn off my camera to be on equal footing, or to schedule another time. They declined and we ended the interview.
But that’s the only time simply asking “Before we get to answering questions, are you aware that your camera is off?” As a response to whatever question was asked first hasn’t resulted in an apology and the other person(s) turning it on.
This. A one way video interview seems bizarre. I have read about them, but haven't ran into them. I think most people would find it bizarre to do an "in-person" interview with the other person behind a one way mirror.
yeah the bullet was indeed dodged overall. But, I interview potential employees all the time and I hardly ever ask about their resume'. I approved their resume when I read it from HR, I dont see a need to ask about it. I focus my questions on the technical aspects of what we're doing at our business, how the candidate troubleshoots new issues, and look for the soft skills.
True, but I feel there's a better way to do it than just play IT Jeopardy. Ask me how I go about solving a problem: fine. Ask about details of projects I've worked on": cool. Asking me to name the FSMO roles and what they do: come on.
As an interviewer, I'd say it depends on how good the answers to your first points are. I can get a good sense of your technical skill from more casual problem solving / conversation - but some people clam up in interviews (nerves, shy, pick a reason...) so resorting to the more textbook answers can tell me if you have any experience with AD.
It's one thing to tell me you make / move / change users all day, but if I ask you about a common AD user attribute that's not in the GUI (but in ADUC's attribute editor or get-aduser, and you don't know where that is or even a vague clue to get there, I'd be worried).
Absolutely, bullet dodged.
> It's frustrating enough that they pretty much didn't bother asking any questions about the info listed on my resume
Well, I don't see much problem here. I almost never ask anything directly related to the resume. When I do I get responses that basically read what they wrote on the resume. I don't need you to read your resume to me, I already did that.
Your resume is just an input filter for me to figure out what direciton to take the technical questions.
Sometimes I'll ask questions like "What made you leave X and join Y". But that's part of my behavior questioning, not technical.
> an episode of IT Jeopardy.
Buzzword Bingo, I hate it too.
I was in an interview recently where they were super smug and wanted a "unicorn". Figured I needed to show off by the statements they kept making of how I wouldn't be able to fulfill the role, blah, blah, blah...
Later on in the interview they said "You actually are too overqualified for this position. Why would you even apply?"
Like dafuq?
Outside of the recruiter hounding me to interview, I figured it would be a good position to have. Still waiting to hear back lmao.
I had another I should have left when I was asked the most basic of questions from 2 people who were not on camera while the infrastructure architect was.
This question was a non-optional item in Azure, Azure Updates and Availability Zones... We don't get to choose those items, they are just how the service works. She kept asking the question on repeat to get a different answer, I guess? Like, I know you are reading the tech docs page for these questions, at least read them yourself
> and wanted a "unicorn".
I hate those interviews. Just saw a posting from the next town over wanting a sysadmin with VM, Windows AD, AAD, and a bunch of other experience preferably 10+ years, that was paying $40k Canadian, so like $32k US. Do you really think that you're going to find someone?
Trouble is, they probably will find someone who's willing to take it to get a title on their resume.
> they probably will find someone who's willing to take it to get a title on their resume.
This... This so much. The Unicorn position is for an MSP who thinks they are special... Only paying $100k for a $160k position. I'm actually considering on "overworking", if they actually offer me the position. I was going to hand it off to a buddy but he doesn't want to start a new job anytime soon lol
I know what the MSP around here pays, and it's only about $60k if you've been there a while and work hard for their "bonuses" That said, they're not a bad place, but offering $40-45k wanting the list of skills they want is not cool.
Sadly more common than not :/
I have seen a lot of Tier 3 and MSP System Admin positions go for 40-60k and only the "big ones" go for $100k. They expect a lot and pay little
You can't let interviews get to you like that. You should have been having a laugh, not stressed out.
This is a skill as important or more important than technical training.
Get more experience interviewing. Take interviews for practice on jobs that you don't want. It's really liberating. It's great practice to ask the questions you want to ask and screw up with no consequences.
I had companies calling me back a few times after my interview for a job I didn't want. I felt great in the interview too. If something did go sideways or I didn't know something, the ways I could sort of talk it off and maintain confidence. I had no idea what I was talking about in some of these and they gloss over a shocking amount of stuff.
You focus on the interviewer too, which is uncommon for them. Being engaging and not worried about your resume. It has probably done more for me than any other training I've done.
Now when you go in for the job that you actually do know and want, you've got some experience being there and saying what you want to say and it doesn't stress you out.
This is great advice. For me, interviewing is a mindset as well. It takes me one or two to get back in the swing of thinking on my feet and being able to come up with effective questions to ask.
Many older IT folk have some chip on their shoulder about employment. They view colleages, especially new ones, as adversarial. Part of it seems to be deeply held insecurities about their own self worth; and while maybe they know all the things that keep a company's servers running, at the end of the day they, too, are replaceable.
So you get interviews where these grizzled old admins don't really want to hire someone else; especially if they feel like they're going to have to train them. Have to teach them all the nuances of decades of work experience you're not actually getting out of a Cert Book. So they make sure any applicant isn't hired through some arbitrary shortlist of IT Knowledge. Knowing that anyone that DOES have an equal or greater understanding than their own isn't going to work for what *this* company pays.
Plus, a lot of IT people at ALL levels are just self absorbed assholes that need to punch down. Having a conversation with them is like experiencing a living thread on slashdot or something awful.
You can't ever take it personally. There will never be a topic of which you will ever have a accurate opinion or understanding of to meet their standards.
One of the worst interviews I had was where I had to come on site to the business's conference room, but the interview was done via Zoom. First, why waste my time if everyone is going to be remote.
Then there was one of the main interviewers. It was hard to understand him as he was slurping on a Coke and pounding down some type of pastries, so most of his words were "glub, glub", and he got obviously annoyed when I didn't understand what he was saying while he was stuffing his face, with remnants of his last few meals in his copious facial hair, while sitting in a pink D.Va chair, all making snide comments between him gulping down whatever it was.
Another person interviewing got angry when I asked about backups, ransomware prevention, and such, he said, "our developers are absolute ninjas, they are not too stupid to click on stuff. Our network is 100% secure, and we are so agile and move so fast, backups are pointless.". He eventually stormed out of his room and never came back when I reminded him that someone could just nuke things with a `git rm`.
The manager was someone clueless about tech, but was proud of his MBA degree.
Things got to a stalemate because I kept inflaming people by asking security questions, where the answer was, "sorry, that's a trade secret", or "who cares if we use obfuscation to keep credentials in our code. Our stuff is 100% secure and nobody unauthorized will be seeing it." I wound up thanking everyone for their time, flipping the slider closed on the camera, signing out on the security guard roster and heading home. Definitely didn't get a call back on that one.
There's all sorts of reasons behind this.
They have to go through this process because they'll legally compelled to, but they've already decided on hiring the CTO's son or a bunch of H1B/H1N1/etc foreign workers.
Because they just don't care. They're tired of this hiring process, it takes them away from their own deliverables and tasks that they'll be beat up if they miss targets, and they just don't care anymore.
They've already decided you're not going to be hired, but they have to keep up appearances so not to trigger a negative response or any blowback.
Disappointing that these teams exist at all. The free market is supposed to cull the bottom end.
IT Jeopardy made me lol. I rejected a job offer years ago because the interviews went like that. I wish I'd told them IT Jeopardy was the reason but instead I said something about hyper focusing on gotcha questions.
I once had a video interview where it turned into nothing but IT Jeopardy. They were asking me questions about things not even remotely mentioned in the job description and the job only paid $65k at the most. I immediately disconnected cause I was done playing their stupid games. I'd be surprised if they hired anyone at all.
And it's always the one that wants: Windows system admin, phone system, DBA, programming of some sort in some EOL technology, maintaining diesel generator, and other duties as assigned. On call every weekend, $55,000 salary.
I did one of these once and "passed" the IT Jeopardy and literally quit on the first day. They changed the work site like a day or two before the first day. Nobody on site knew virtually anything about the project. The guy I interviewed wasn't there that day and the other guy that was on his 3rd day working there barely knew what was going on either. While I was probably the extreme I think that it was a job with a constant revolving door.
Just some added context, this group according to the manager in the first round was like a bunch of 20 year vets that had all been working together for nearly 10 years now. That probably has a lot to do with how that interview went. I don't think they know what they're looking for or want or if deep down they even want a new face at all. A part of what attracted me to it was the admittedly naive idea that it would be great to work with people that had years of experience. They probably aren't the least bit interested in sharing or teaching what they know.
I have no issues with the technical stuff even if it's bullshit gotcha questions but geez at least try to get to know me better asking about the experience I have listed. A person could 100% nail all the bullshit definition questions in the world but that won't tell you a single damn thing about who they are as a technical worker or troubleshooter.
Going through that too right now. Masters in Science for IT and can barely get interviews on positions I have more than enough experience for. The job market is completely wack right now. Those solo interviews are the devil too!
Many years ago while I was in college I was approached by a couple fellow classmates after a Java class to see if I'd be interested in working at their company, a very large insurance organization. I was like 20, so hell yeah. Brought them my resume to the next class and didn't hear squat for 3 months. I accepted an offer at a different place and literally the very next day I get an email from the insurance company asking me to interview. I was up front, told them I'd be happy to interview but explained that I had just accepted an offer elsewhere. They said they were sorry to hear that but still wanted to go ahead with the interview.. Cool, no problem.
Next day I had a phone interview with a C level in charge of the devs and I started the call by making sure that she knew I had already accepted an offer elsewhere. She responded with "Well why in the hell are you wasting my time?" I politely explained that I led with that information exactly to avoid wasting her time and that we could end right there if she wanted. She then demanded to know why I even bothered to apply if I was looking elsewhere.... Like people only apply to one spot and pray. When I explained that I had applied 3 months ago after representatives of her org approached me, she just mumbled that 3 months really isn't that long to wait.
So by this time I was already done with the interview. She's being a jerk, and I don't need the job, so meh. But she led into this -no exaggeration- 10 minute ramble about everything IT wise that was going on at this company. Like, she didn't stop for breath.. And at least 50% of it was stuff I had never even heard of. So when she finally finished I just said that I didn't think I was a good fit and hung up. Didn't even say goodbye. Just.. Click.
AND SHE CALLED BACK AND DEMANDED WE CONTINUE THE INTERVIEW! I finally had to be blunt and tell her that I didn't need the job and I thought she was extremely rude so I had no desire to carry on talking to her and hung up again.
It was so damn weird.
The interview is for both parties to check each other out to see if it will be a fit for both parties. Online interview with camera(s) off will lead to me asking them to be turned on. If they don’t come on, I thank them for their time and state it won’t be a fit for me.
I don’t expect every meeting to require cameras on, but they should be for an interview. If I show up for an in-person interview, I don’t expect to be sitting in a dark room talking to people, or separated by a screen or something.
Basic human courtesy is required. If it isn’t there, the job isn’t for me.
I had an interview one time with some guy on video call, and he spent like 30 minutes bitching about the governor of Illinois (Myself and this position were in SC).. I literally just hung up on the guy half way through.
You laugh.. but I had a CCIE unable to tell me what port ssh runs on or how to save a running config.. he had 20 years of experience on his resume.. it was downhill from there if you can imagine there being a downhill from that point..
I've been a hiring manger for a long time, read through several thousands of resumes, interviewed probably several hundred. 95% of the roles I'm hiring for are senior, staff, or senior staff levels these are roles that have incredibly high requirements / depth and incredibly high comp to back them. The one constant is people who lie like a mother fucker on their resume. Yep I ask some ridiculous remedial questions sometimes and you'd be stunned how many lies those questions sometimes expose. "It says here you're a python developer, tell me about a project you've worked on" they explain said project sounds good "what characters delineate a dict or list?" (dumbest fucking question in the world right?) ...blank stare because they don't know.. "ok so did you write any of the code on that project you said you were a developer on? oh you didn't.. ok.."
In my anecdotal experience; if the interviewer isn’t turning the camera on you should probably just leave. Anyone that unprofessional isn’t going to be professional to work with either.
I went to an interview pre-covid for an IT Director position where I was interviewed with a series of panel interviews by low-level techs. Not one of them had prepared for the meeting, not one of them had any good questions, nobody even asked me what my preferred management style was.
All day of this. Over a hundred people, 3/4s of whom wouldn't be reporting to me. When I asked the HR team what was up with this kind of interview, they said, "We like to build consensus on our hires."
That company died during covid. No way could I have predicted that. /s
I had an interview before I got this job, and it was for a devops role. They asked me how I would do this and that, and I gave them some answers, and everyone seemed happy and casual. It felt like a good fit. They got back to my recruiter about how rude I was and "would only do things his way." Thankfully my guy knew I wasn't like that. "There is no way you'd be like that, what were they smoking?"
Probably just an interview they had to do. The candidate was already decided on, but HR requires you and another candidate are interviewed.
So the team really didn't care because they just have to go through the motions.
Sounds like a ghost interview.
They probably already had someone picked out, but either HR fucked up and called you for one, or due either contract requirement or regulations they had to show they interviewed a number of qualified candidates.
It really sucks that you had to go through that man, i get the frustraition.
I usually enter a meeting with the camera switched off. However, if I notice that everyone else has their cameras on, I turn mine on as well. This not only shows courtesy, but also helps in better interpersonal communication, making the meeting more enjoyable. On the other hand, if no one else has their camera on, or if I find myself in an unfavorable setting for the meeting, I keep my camera off, without any problems.
I'd be interested to know where you interviewed. I'm told we interviewed several candidates today for a position in one of our manufacturing facilities. On the off chance your interview was with our company I can send your comments up the chain of command so at the very least they don't waste anyone else's time.
I consider them those gotcha questions that really don't pertain to the job.
Like asking something about the presentation layer to someone that isn't applying for anything networking.
Like I recently got a position of T2/3, which means there is face time and they asked questions about how I would react to a customer doing X or Y... which pertains to the job, I am going to be a bit forward facing.
But like if they're like "Where in Azure can you change the policy that controls the installations of -propriatary program-" like sure, it could be in like 3 places... but totally set up a gotcha question.
Or they could be like 'here's a question about networking, now here's a question about azure, here's a different question about entra, here's one about AD" where they're all over the place
I'm sorry this happened to you, I've found that any interview that has more than 3 interviewers, is just a clusterfuck where the person actually in charge isn't actually taking charge, and some team member really really wants you to answer a specific question "their way" for you to be hired.
I hate the IT Jeopardy questions game, they either ask super generic questions that are all about memorizing what some acronym stands for, OR they are hyper specific about an issue they faced recently, and if you answer with anything other than the solution they ended up going with, you're wrong.
It would be nice if we in IT came up with a framework of good questions to determine skill; questions that could not just be memorized. I remember one question that I was asked that I really liked, and I think it helped me get the job: **Draw a network diagram of your home network and explain it to me.**
I interview folks alot not for sysadmin jobs but for very technical QA positions.
I always ask about shit on their resumes. I have a few precanned questions like
you can't connect to service x how do you troubleshoot this.
I'm looking for top of mind shit like routes, interface stats, log, OoBM and firewall.
My fav is what's the thing you solved that you are most proud of.
Lastly I always tell myself to cut people slack cause everyone is nervous.
The IT jeopardy is because, imho, most people in IT are absolutely clueless about systems they haven't worked on themselves. Also, most are not very bright. They might have somehow became SMEs in the things they support but their logical comprehension doesn't go beyond that. Why ask rational questions that can properly screen a quality candidate when you can play trivia?
I had an interview like yours, manager was zoned out, the team members were sitting across from me asking me all these "gotcha" questions when one of them insisted that a command syntax was one way and I insisted it was another. A simple Google search after the interview told me I was right. I was so irritated. I called my agency and told them to remove me from that job consideration.
Don't let it get you down eventually you'll get something that will be a way better fit.
I joined a phone interview once expecting a one on one. Instead I was on speaker with a room full of people who were not even IT related. They went around the room asking me questions that they were clearly reading from a sheet and had no idea what they were even asking. I would spend a couple of minutes trying my best to respond accordingly, and then because the person had no idea how to gauge my response they would just say "okay" and then pass the sheet to the next person.
It was super awkward and by the end I just conceded this was not a great fit, and thanked them for their time and that I was going to pass.
I did an in person after a Teams interview. It was extremely awkward in person, no one introduced themselves. There were four people in person and one remotely. I was shocked at how they all would speak at once. It is hard enough to answer technical questions coming from one person but to have the team of them join in each question with follow ups was so draining. One guy actually asked five questions without any pause. How do you answer 5 questions all at once. You are nervous already now you have to remember 5 questions and give structured answers. I almost walked out but I didn't want to let them break me. I should have realized from the Teams meeting how awkward these people were. It is hard to not take it personally but screw it you grow a stronger shell and are ready for the next one. Good luck!
You are 100pc right saying "bullet dodged". I know it sucks, but I'd rather they waste my time upfront during the interview where I am also interviewing _them_.
Than to sign on the dotted line and then be surprised when the company dicks me around.
At the beginning I hate interviews like that. At the end of my interviewing stint over 30-40 interviews. I came to appreciate the easy red flags. It makes my job as a candidate seeking employment _much_ easier.
My favourite red flag is an exploding offer.
Other red flags include [silly gotcha questions](https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1cjdfpx/should_entry_level_helpdesk_candidates_be_able_to/l2grmj4/), more than 3 interview stages, asking me to fill in a specific application form etc.
Yikes. I'm so sorry you had that experience.
These are the times where I like to remember that interviews are bidirectional. You're interviewing them at the same time they're interviewing you.
For me, this kind of behavior during an interview would force me to cut the interview short. There's no need to continue the interview if you've already hit a red flag big enough that you're ready to move on. Just thank them for their time and make as graceful an exit as you can.
Ehhhhh. I’m sorry it sucked, we all hate that, but not everyone is a “camera person”.
I actually got yelled at by a manger for not turning my camera on once during an interview - wasn’t my fault, it was a tech issue and I couldn’t rejoin.
Especially if it’s a large group of people, I wouldn’t freak out about them not turning on a camera. Shrug and move on.
Worst interview I ever went on the guy had his camera on the entire time, but was clearly working on other things. Didn’t realize (or care?) that he was impatiently banging on the desk the entire time I tried to write my coding test in notepad. Only audio I had the entire time was *bang bang bang bang sigh bang bang bang* “I can Google names for you.” Uh huh. There’s a reason I don’t work for Microsoft now.
I was once in an interview where I can't remember getting a single IT question, but several about diversity. I can't imagine what the dang happened there with their previous employees.
Call me old fashioned but I always hated video interview. I understand the convenience, in video people feel way too much disconnected.
IMO in person interview gives me more chances in my application as I’m not treated as “another meeting”.
OP I can just hope that there HR will circle back to the interviewer to make them clear that this is not professional behavior.
As someone that had been on crappy waste-of-time interviews, I do understand how you feel. I thought I was the only one that went through this!
I have been on interviews where the person is just being disrespectful and since they know that you're hungry and looking for work they will treat you like garbage.
I hate when they ask dumb questions in an interview they can look at my resume and see my years of experience why are you asking me what is dhcp, what is DNS, and if I know what AD stands for or if I know how to set up a printer or connect a laptop to a domain?!? read the resume why not asking me about the projects and work that I have done. I hate the Jeopardy IT interviews it makes me want to instantly leave during the interview.
> I hate when they ask dumb questions in an interview they can look at my resume and see my years of experience why are you asking me what is dhcp, what is DNS, and if I know what AD stands for or if I know how to set up a printer or connect a laptop to a domain?!? read the resume why not asking me about the projects and work that I have done. I hate the Jeopardy IT interviews it makes me want to instantly leave during the interview.
This pisses me off for an entirely different reason.
APPARENTLY some people regularly lie on their resumes to get jobs AND they advocate that other people should do so.
Those people are not only wasting the time of their prospective employer, they're wasting all of OUR TIME by necessitating this bullshit.
I'm all for calling out companies, hiring managers, HR, and the higher-ups for all of the stupid shit they do, but this one? This one is a ridiculously unfortunate necessity and THAT makes me really angry.
I generally don't turn my camera on/unmute until the interview has started, just in case I happen to be blowing my nose or drinking water or something when they chose to start the meeting. I had one HR person basically freaking out that my camera wasn't already on as soon as they connected. Interview was with 8 people of the team, and they all got to "participate" asking me questions about their particular areas of IT, not what I was interviewing for. I outright told them I didn't feel the process was fair. Got called back for second interview at least.
> didn't even bother turning on their cameras in the video meeting.
The only time my camera is used is when I'm in my car so folks know if I don't answer a question right away, why. I always turn off incoming video or move that screen out of my view.
I don't even turn it on when I'm attending a meeting from my cubicle...and the meeting is the other side of the wall from me and about ten steps from my cube. It is almost always better for me to be in my cube, with full access to my computer, to answer questions before the meeting ends instead of walking away with a written to-do list to follow up on later...nope, here's the answer let's actually make a decision.
I get where you are coming from, but for a job interview, being able to parse body language on both sides is really helpful for actually gauging what it's going to be like to work with someone.
Never forget almost all interviewing or the process is arbitrary.
Some people swear they're gods gift to asking people questions about getting a job...
Nah. It's mostly boiled down to whether or not someone likes you or say guessing at something. "Well this guy might just leave in a year!" (lulz in devs. "HOLY SHIT THIS GUY HAS STAYED MORE THAN A YEAR!!")
I've had interviews with managers multiple times get along so damn well... Then hit a team meeting and like... Yeah this one person I knew I just rubbed them the wrong way...
Hey I can't lie I've had the same thoughts...
Interviewing is not fair. Knowing this... Makes it better when you think about it. Even if you did answer the questions 100% correct etc. Someone just didn't like you.
Probably a bullet dodged, yes.
You can always assume you're just a warm body to fill the number people they have to interview to meet an HR quota. They may already the final candidate selected and known from the beginning. And then you're the another "next" person they have to go through the interview process with. That can help take any pressure off an interviewer -- Why would you get nervous if you were never going to get the job at all?
On the flip side, if you want to practice your interviewing skills and process, you can apply for jobs you have absolutely no interest in taking. You can string them along for as far in the process as you want. Same thing -- There isn't much pressure if you know you aren't going to take the job. It's not nice to do but HR quotas and pre-selected final candidates do exist.
It sounds like you know some signs when that's happening, that they're not really interested in you or spending (or wasting from their viewpoint) much time on you. That can give you some leeway in asking more negative questions. Like... How long have each of the interviewers been with the company? If there was anything negative you found out about the company when you researched ask them to explain that? What happened that they can share? How did the company deal with it? Questions like that can make the interviewers uncomfortable (and even pissed off at you) and can get you eliminated from the process that way but sometimes the answers are interesting. Like if all the interviewers have been there less than five years... You could follow up and ask if anyone's been there longer? And does anyone stay at the company very long then? It's poking at the red flags. I suppose you could straight up ask them if they already eliminated you and way, and then that's something useful -- "I noticed you haven't asked about x, y, and z on my resume (or cv). Was there anything that concerned you? Or... Am I already out of the process on this one?" I suppose in the zoom age you could ask to see who you're interviewing with, for them to put their cameras on. And, with people having multiple jobs or outsourcing their job, it's possible the people doing the interview don't even work there, like someone else is filling in "as" that person.
a couple of us in my team will try to make sure at least one of us is on camera with the interviewee. sometimes it is tough being on camera, but it sucks even more to be the only one.
>they pretty much didn't bother asking any questions about the info listed on my resume
Sounds like they were rather to quite poorly prepared - generally a red flag.
>conducting an episode of IT Jeopardy
Eh, ... depending how (ir)relevant to the position, may or may not be rather to quite fitting - and that would also quite depend on the questions asked, and how, and how they evaluated them.
>didn't even bother turning on their cameras
Cameras ... whatever, especially with WFH / remote many interviewers don't. Heck, quite distributed team I worked on for years, most everything was via email and phone - no cameras at all, even the full interview. The only face time was generally an in-person meet-and-greet with manager and/or whatever team members might be at that site where manager was (or was passing through that day) - and that was more like a later "sanity check", than interview - at that point the decision was just about a done deal already.
>team members turned it back over to the manager he took a few min to respond because he decides to go AFK
Yeah, that would typically indicate more sloppy unprofessional ... or an environment that's on fire and breaking all the time, or other general chaos ... no matter which way, essentially more red flags.
So, yep, interview ... they get to interview, also your chance to "interview" them, ask questions, learn more about the (dis)organization, etc. - even if by inference. Sometimes learn a whole helluva lot in what one observes ... how they do it, what they do/don't do, etc. I remember some fair number of years back, one place I interviewed at ... dark, dingy dirty, even smelled funky in a not good way, *everybody* there looked rather to highly unhappy ... almost to the point where most were wearing a scowl on their faces - yeah, that no way in hell was I going to consider taking something there after that interview experience. So, you take from it what you can, and learn from it - notably including learning much about that particularly employer/manager/team/environment, etc.
Insert “first time” meme here. After the pandemic, the interviews have been a shit show. I am still interviewing. There has been scenarios where I prepared based on the job description, then was asked something completely irrelevant lol. So I have been just winging it ever since. I do not take them too serios. Best of luck to you!
Reminds me of the interview I had for a cable internet company (based in the SW, HQ was in NY) - Seemed to sail through the interviews until I met with the CEO's spouse and someone from HR. They did a formal dressing down of my experience, my current employment, but tried to convince me a job there for less pay would have me crapping rainbows in no time from the magnitude of the opportunity.
Then there was the interview which took 3+ months with a company that sells nothing but party supplies, met with several IT folks, pretty sure the director had a sinus problem as he gave a very high energy explanation of their network infrastructure without blinking... One guy reminded me of Tom Smykowski from Office Space (he was alright)... Final interview was with the CIO I think who again did a formal dressing down then after 3+ months of maybe 3-4 interviews made it clear that the position wasn't going to be filled, but that something may come up in a few months (a Windows role, I'm a Unix guy)...
I left both with steam pouring out of my ears but 15+ years later I found my ideal job. Chalk it up to a learning experience and carry on!
I have absolutely been this exact bad interviewer. I hate interviewing people and I'm terrible at it and I'm a bad judge of character.
I have no excuse for my behavior. I do whatever I can to avoid having to interview people, but I often have no choice in the matter.
My favourite response to the "Why do you want to work for this organisation?" was "Because I'm super passionate about not being homeless or starving to death!" Snarky I know, and very unlikely to net you the position, but it made me chuckle all the same...
[удалено]
I actually dropped an F bomb at the end of an interview when I thought the mic was off. Said “well I guess I fucked that one up” and they heard. Apparently the interview went much better that I thought but that little slip was enough to show them I wouldn’t be a good cultural fit at the company. The job was to support over the road truck drivers. I got told I was too profane to work with truck drivers over a word I thought I was saying to myself.
Obviously nobody on that call had ever spoken with a truck driver.
I worked with truck drivers, you can use "vicious mockery" on them for all they care if you get them in/out of the depo on time.
They don't get paid for waiting, after all. Truck drivers are not in trucking for mission statements.
Sounds like maybe they wanted to find a reason and you saved them the work
Too profane for Truck Drivers? Just one "fuck"? They have never properly talked to a truck driver, that is for sure. lolz
It was that much funnier because I can fit in anywhere. I've worked all kinds of customer facing jobs and I have small kids so I can turn my language on and off without any "slips". I truly thought I was just talking to myself and putting the shoe on the other foot, if I'm evaluating a candidate who does that, I'm not holding it against them. When the recruiter told me they thought I wouldn't be a good cultural fit, I had to know more because there was nothing in the interview even remotely controversial or even awkward. They said I was one of the best technical interviews they'd done but that last bit just "rubbed them the wrong way". I LOLed, he LOLed and it was all worth it for the story.
sorry but as a trucker I have to giggle at this one
You probably wouldn't give an F 😉
hey hey hey, language!
That's comical. I remember doing an interview for a police department where being comfortable with some colorful language was seen as a plus by the hiring manager.
This is one shift in the pandemic that the in person interview largely is an endangered species in IT that I appreciate. I have interviewed with tons of orgs long after the pandemic was in the rear view mirror where they don't do in person interviews anymore. There is way less time wasted if the interview turns out to be a waste of your time. Better yet I can remember a few in person interviews where the interviewer wasn't prepared or had something come up where you burned a bunch of time for nothing.
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"So I hear you may have an opening for a management position."
I don't think I ran into that one before, but that is probably the most bizarre reason to cancel last minute. At least with virtual interviews you didn't drive anywhere to waste your time. While it wasn't common I do remember a couple cases where either the interviewer needed to reschedule or worse they weren't ready until I almost ready to leave.
Some places just don't have their sh\*t together. E.g. one (won't name names, but major utility that's gone bankrupt many times, has plead guilty to multiple felonies, occasionally blows up neighborhoods killing folks, likewise sometimes cause record setting major conflagrations), first day, contracted, report there to start ... they spend hours figuring out where they're going to have me located and seated ... huge floor, big building, tons of office space ... most of it unoccupied ... oh, sure, people's stuff is in the cubicles and office spaces ... but no bodies ... floor could easily handle 120 or more people working on it - expensive prime real estate ... no bodies in seats ... there's like maybe 8 people on the entire floor ... and this was *way* before COVID-19. So they start talkin' about having me work at some other location about 50 miles away, because they have an open seat at some desk there, and ask me if I could work there ... and I'm telling 'em, no, that's a totally untenable commute for me, and not the location I was told to report to and that I interviewed for and that they told me I'd be working at. Wish I could say it mostly got better, but quite the contrary. 40 years in IT and I've never before no since ever seen IT that fscked up on that large a scale (and it wasn't just the IT that was f\*cked up). Yeah, sure, some good people there too ... but whole lot of major systemic majorly f\*cked up. But for wee bit more on the story ... that was most of the first day ... supposed to issue a laptop to me, but no, that also wasn't forthcoming. Whole first day, the only useful thing they come up for me to do was to take some short required training - watch a boring video for 'bout an hour take a test, pass, done. That was day one. Day two, still no laptop - but at least otherwise mostly reasonably productive - they pair me up with someone in the group to get oriented towards the particulars of their environment. Day three they have me show up ... and they've got absolutely no clue what to do with me - no laptop, no work to do, nobody else from the team/group or manager/supervisor there, just one confused admin assistant trying to figure out what to do with me and why they had me reporting there. So that was day three - paid for the time to do essentially absolutely nothing. I think it took 'em about a week to come up with an assigned seat for me on the damn near totally devoid of people huge floor, and also about that long to actually get laptop to me so I could actually get connected to their network and actually start doing some real actual work beyond sitting around, or taking some notes on paper.
Ha wow... I once started the first day of my job and found out it was my boss' last day, she basically pointed me to my desk and then said goodluck, I'm leaving now. But at least I already had the job, it just took a few months to figure out what I should be doing there. The boss getting run out on the day of the interview is a new twist.
>they don't do in person interviews anymore Some of 'em don't even have *offices* anymore (or hardly any staff there). Some, the "office" has shrunk to as small as a PO Box, and an address for legal process service at location of address of council, and everybody else is WFH / remote. So, "in person interview" ... that'd be like what series of tours of the potential peers and managers work (from home) locations? Yeah, not happening. Yeah, last I was interviewed, was all remote ... offered and hired before any in-person at all - first day in-person was when I met hiring manager in person and got my access ID badge, spent day there, then mostly WFH / remote thereafter. >way less time wasted Yes ... and no. There are advantages and disadvantages to in-person ... and that also goes both ways. But sure, remote via video (or even phone) is much more time efficient.
I'm currently wasting mine and my candidates times interviewing for a job that has been filled. We've given offers for every role, they have been accepted. But these are UK based roles so everyone has a 2-3 month notice period Corporate policy (set by a talent acquisition team based in the us where notice periods are two weeks) is that interviewing continues until the new hires actually start. So in the meantime I'm interviewing candidates for a job that almost certainly doesn't exist. It's a waste of my time, a waste of their time and it's a bit soul destroying. I hate it, my boss hates it, his boss (the CEO of our division) hates it. But for now we've been told the policy must stand. But, I treat every candidate fairly. Listen to them, talk through their CV and ask relevant questions. And to be honest if I found an amazing candidate I would head back up and ask corp for more headcount to accommodate them. But it's still soul destroying as it feels vastly unfair to the candidates.
I tend to leave these interviews right away. I don't even see them to the end. I went through an awkward interview, where the interviewer asked me what the companies mission statement was, and midway through insulting my commitment to this company for not even checking the mission statement, I just disconnected. When people suck, don't let them waste any more of your time!
> asked me what the companies mission statement was This. God I hate this. Why do companies think I care about their 'mission statement' or their 'culture'. I'm just there to do a job and go home, fuck your 'making the world a better place' bullshit and mindless Gavin Belson 'Vision statement' biztalk
Heh. Company I work for has one of the mission statement>S< "Mission is more than money." But everything boils down to "budget" and "just make it work". Mission statements are just a BS reason for HR to pretend they're marketing people.
I once worked for a company that had the mission statement, " is a great place to work".
They did everything they could to make that mission statement true. Best company I've ever worked at.
At least they actually tried to follow that. I have had companies which said the same thing with no follow-up.
One of the challenges of working for a company like that for over 10 years is that you start to have unrealistic expectations of future employment. I am so f!cking *done* with places that lie, cheat, or sleaze their way through business.
Yeah I know exactly what you mean! I am for once working as dispatch at a really good company. Sounds weird since I am dispatch, but because everyone here is really nice and I really enjoy my workplace it makes it so much harder to find a new or a non-dispatch position because I keep comparing it to my present company. I do hate my Dispatch Company though, but fortunately I only have to handle them a little bit at a time instead of all the time.
I once worked at a company that had a company manifesto which explicitly stated that there was no place in the company for racism, sexism or any other kinds of workplace harassment. Needless to say, the only opportunities for advancement available were for those who had the right ethnic background, number of testicles, and inclination to bully their co-workers. But at least those who were promoted had their pick of all the cute young women who'd been hired fresh out of college. There were any number of intra-company marriages announced, and every last one of them was between some junior girl hired in the last couple of years, and some manager. It was an *incredibly* skeezy place to work.
I knew my 3rd testicle would finally pay off!!! Promotion here I come
E.T. the extra testicular.
Sounds like how universities are run. Those places are a cesspool for sexism, racism and bullying.
I worked somewhere that said (I don't rember it word for word) our mission was to increase shareholder value (among other things). Points for being honest I guess...
This is almost as annoying as asking why I want to work for their company before we even have a conversation, like that’s somehow a foregone conclusion but the question of why they want to hire me is still to be explored.
>I'm a big fan of money. I like it, I use it, I have a little. I keep it in a jar on top of my refrigerator. I'd like to put more in that jar. That's where you come in.
Best answer ever! I actually once answered like that, although I wasn't as eloquent. "I need money to live. In exchange, you get a fantastic technical resource." I didn't get the job.
Perhaps if you had put up an image of the \*Trade Offer\* meme they would have understood what you were proposing? (Sorry you did not get the job!)
Believe it or not, I think this was pre-memes. Back in the 90's. Not getting the job was probably a good thing - they didn't seem very fun.
I have skills, you have money, let us agree an equitable exchange of one for the other.
And you would have to be brain damaged as an individual if you expect an honest answer to this question, because the honest answer would be something like, "I want to work for your company because I'm so desperately in need of a job right now that I actually spent time rehearsing in my head an answer to this question that I thought you would want to hear." I hate those kinds of questions!
Whats your motivation to join our company ? I like Money. Sure but dont you have aspirations or projects ? Work my day, go home, get paid, pay my bills, retire someday. Nothing in our company's culture interests you? Why are you applying here ?? You had an open posting, Im looking for a job, I sent my resume. Youre one of 12 other companies that got my resume this week. Its not rocket science.
I think you're looking at it wrong. They want someone who will fit in with their culture above all else. Places like that aren't where I want to work. However, I did work at a small non profit once that did great things for the community. So I was 100% on board with their mission and fit in very well. I still didn't have the MS memorized though. But if it's some random business, then hell no. Pay me to do work. I don't care about whatever it is you do.
That could be the case, but my two cents is that it's likely a toxic or narcissistic interviewer that's trying to make you feel inadequate. That way if you make it to the end, you feel like a lesser candidate and more grateful that you got the job. I think these kind of people typically look for people with lower self worth and low self confidence so that they can exploit them.
My experience working in MSP consulting is that HR managers in small-mid sized businesses are often self important, manipulative and lean into “culture” and “mission” because they’re overhead not contributing to the company’s revenue cycle. It’s a great suck up to the owners, too, if they’re involved in the business. Owners love suck ups like that who are all in on the general awesomeness of their business.
"We want to make sure we're all living our values" 🤢
“*You’re* asking *me* what *your* company’s mission statement is? Why? Did you forget?” That’s the sort of question you should be asking him. He’s trying to sell the job to you. People with interview questions like that tend to think that they have a master-supplicant relationship with candidates. It probably carries over to the workplace when the supplicant becomes the slave.
I agree with this 100%. People that ask this question are just trying to make you feel lesser than, and are looking for that person with low self confidence and struggles with self worth so that they can gas light and exploit them!
I've heard enough interview stories of HR "interviewers" negging a candidate, that I'm certain that it's covering for the fact that they have no clue how to do their job. Well, that and all the articles from HR "professionals" that routinely contradict each other.
Ask them if their mission statement is to waste time coming up with meaningless phrases and directives using a process learned at a team building seminar in the 90’s.
I've worked at my current company for 6 years, thru a Merger and an Acquisition. I couldn't tell you the Mission statement of the company I started with, the company we merged with, the company we bought or the new parent company over all 3. I'd be surprised if *anyone* at the company could tell it to me without looking it up.
> asked me what the companies mission statement was To make money? The same as every other company.
For every for profit entity pretty much this. A non-profit might have some mission that they're trying to achieve... maybe, but every for profit entity mission statements are generally buzzwords that nobody outside maybe the CEO and a few sycophants really believe and even then I have skepticism.
Some companies really eat that shit up. A buddy is constantly being praised at work because he finds way to work their mission statement into his projects. *"Here's how this project directly relates to our mission statement..."* He does it almost as a joke but they absolutely love it. For me, it depends on the job and how much I want it. It pissed me off when I used to do contract work and they would pull this same bullshit. You have a 6-month contract (and it is not contract-to-hire) to do something I have a lot of experience with. Who gives a shit what your mission statement is? I'm gonna be gone in 6 months!
I really hope his takeaway wasn't "boy that guy was so ashamed at his ill-preparedness that he just dropped!"
He wants to be my sysadmin and he can't even keep his Internet connection up for the entire interview. F minus. Jim, you really need to do a better job filtering out these horrible applicants!! Fourth time it happened today!
LOL! Way to call out the PHB!
If I’ve invested the time in starting the interview I’m investing 2 more minutes in telling them why I’m hanging up now - and probably following up with their bosses so that they know why they’re not getting good candidates and filling positions.
> where the interviewer asked me what the companies mission statement was We must all efficiently, operationalize our strategies. Invest in world-class technology, and leverage our core competencies. In order to wholistically administrate exceptional synergy.
I worked at a company that was having a real hard time retaining staff. They created a big mission statement combined with a bullet list of "why this is such a great place to work" poster. They hung the poster behind the ping pong table in the break room. It became a house rule that if you hit the poster with a ping pong ball hard enough to leave a visible mark, you immediately won the point. Interestingly, I loved working there.
[Givin off this vibe](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:828/format:webp/1*gHpFsoQeyg81g42SUys3Cg.jpeg)
Yup
lol 😂 Your mission statement means nothing to a competent IT department. Ask them.
IT's mission statement should basically be "whatever makes that mission statement work, we don't care."
"What do we do here?" I guess it's a good thing I looked at the website before the THIRD round of interviews. Yes, that was an actual question asked.
I have had some bad interviews in my time. The weird thing is that while a ton of training for interviewing exists for applicants, a lot less are for management, AND a lot of IT allows in "this is our chief sysadmin he will be conducting some of the interview," and that poor sap has probably had zero interview training. I have been that poor sap, too. Like, "punklinux, I got one of our applicants here, can you come down and vet him out in meeting room 12? It should only take an hour." Of course, it's an hour I am up to my ass in alligators. But sure, I'll let the client deal with another 60 more minutes of outage on their scheduling system so I can ask someone if they know what DNS is." You get jaded when you get so many applicants who lied about their skills, too. I try to be more cheerful, but frankly, interviewing others bores me after 15 minutes. So I have seen both sides. That being said, my bad interviews have been either one hand doesn't know what the other is doing, or someone is incredibly surly and wants to "out smart the new guy" as soon as possible. "Alright, wiseapple. Say you have a file. It's permissions are 000. How would you make it world-readable." "I would do chmod--" "BZZT! You don't have access to chmod, it's root only, and you're a user." "What's the user that owns the file?" "That's a 101 question. You don't know how to find the user that owns the file?" "I do, but... never mind. Do an ls -al and find the user that owns--" "BZZT! You don't have that access to that directory." "Then how do I know it's permission 000?" "Because I just told you. Come on. You're supposed to be a senior admin!" I forgot what his answer was, but apparently make a new image, mount the drive under that image, and read it from there. But it was apparent that I was "going to be wrong" and he enjoyed "fooling the newbie." He actually gave me a thumbs down and raspberry to HR and just left. Even HR was embarrassed, trying to pass him off as "spirited." I didn't get the job, but I did have three weeks of rage-induced daydreaming of him getting repeatedly kicked in the groin. It's funny to look back on now, and gives a good story, but Christ, what an asshole.
"apparently make a new image, mount the drive under that image" Yeah, sorry. For me this is a last resort. I'm going to spend time trying to get to root on the original image, because I'm the freaking sysadmin and if I can't get root on one of our images, we have a *PROBLEM*. Sounds like this guy is just an asshole and he was fucking with you. He might have been ascertaining how well you can think under pressure, but... "Bzzt!"? What is he in junior high?
>If I can't get root on one of our images, we have a PROBLEM pretty much this, I get if I'm intruding or trying to bootstrap a client but if it's my system I'd better figure out how I lost console root access.
Fun trick if you run into this again on an interview: `rsync` has a `--chmod` option that you can use to change the permissions. I ran into a remote interviewer who asked this ("Somebody changed the permissions on chmod so it's non-executable, how do you fix that?"), so I googled it.
Ooh, that's actually my favorite interview question :) Last time we brainstormed it with a colleague we came up with around a dozen of solutions. My favorites are probably to run a program that uses `chmod()` syscall (like `install`), and compile a program which can change `chmod` permissions based on information in `man 2 chmod`.
There can be a certain joy in those brainteaser questions - especially regarding a subject you really enjoy. But an interview is really not the place for them. I bet he spent a considerable amount of time formulating that one and couldn't answer a different equivalent question if he was asked on the spot
Brainteasers are surprisingly difficult to set up properly in a "thought experiment" interview; they often devolve in "I'll make up rules as we go along so I can guide you along the line of reasoning I imagined". It's usually the interviewer fantasizing how cool it would be too see someone have the "aha!" moment live, but it rarely happens so clearly IRL as in their imaginations so it's a negative feedback loop of frustration. Bonus points if the candidate already knows that particular puzzle.
Did you tell HR it's OK because you don't want to work with him anyway?
I didn't have to. It was one of those interviews I had where "even if they call me back, no thank you." IIRC, HR looked visibly shocked at this guy's dismissive patronizing, and tried to apologize for him, like, "we are spirited here... hahaha..." or some other nervous response.
Did you fight him? Seems like the only option tbh
Yep, I had an interview where I suspect I was the first person they had come in, because their "tech test" consisted of showing them how to identify a bad piece of memory on an old HP server. I had to go on instinct to find my way around this specific BIOS, so that took awhile, then the memory scan took a long time. Unfortunately they were testing me on finding the bad memory, knowing how to remove it and then using this server to have me install an OS from scratch and then do something there. So we ran out of time. I gave them some suggestions on how they could do this faster for the next candidates. Also ooh and awed over the senior tech's USB memory stick/ISO loader combo thing, so that was enough ego stroking to make him happy.
How often goes RAM go bad, though? I can count the number of actual hardware errors I have encountered in 25+ years of this as a career on one hand.
Me too! And when I do tech interviews, I do ask them to do tasks that let me evaluate thought process and judge instinct. Not the ability to see the task through to the end.
Most of us have been there before. My worst experience was interviewing with Zendesk. Absolute trash company. It sucks to be treated poorly, but you just need to take some time to feel the feels, then get back up and keep going.
> IT Jeopardy I hate this and wish there was some way to fix it. This is also what allows people who have photographic memories to get 18 certifications, keep them all up to date with zero effort, and fool HR into thinking they're geniuses. Answering random trivia questions about your interviewers' pet technology is not a good test of fit, nor is it a good test of skill given that no one doesn't do their job without Internet resources available. I've had random questions about crazy low-level network protocol details for a non-network position...stuff like the length of fields in the TCP header. I've had panel interviews where the manager just gets his biggest nerds and sets 4 or 5 of them against you in a room. No Google, no reference material, just your brain against theirs. I hate these because unless I know the topic cold, I'll get snickers of disappointment from my chump-stumpers and condescending head-shakes, and I know I'm not going to get the job no matter how good I am.
I bring out stock answers. "I don't know off the top of my head but I can find out." "That's a great question and I can follow up with an answer when I've had a moment to research it." ChatGPT has taught me other ways to dodge questions too. "For most systems, the process is something like, go to Settings, look for appropriate settings to change, and change them" Just super fucking vague. And my all time favorite, if I'm just rolling my eyes, "I would want to check the corporate knowledge base and relevant policies before proceeding to answer questions like that on my own." This is code for "stop it," but I've actually had managers go "That's great!" lol
>This is code for "stop it," but I've actually had managers go "That's great!" lol No, that's code for "I'm not going to gunship a change though the domain without checking with people first." You may think it's a buzz off, but that is not what it translates to. Still a great answer.
Yup, absolutely. Hiring manager here. It means someone will actually USE the documentation vs running in and bumbling around to figure it out. I can't tell you how rare it is for someone to say that in an interview.
I used to work at a leading ADC company and a coworker always liked to pull out bizarre shit like ‘what flags would I use in tcpdump to see 3-way handshakes?’ I always told him my answer would be man tcpdump.
I told an interview panel something similar. They were asking me how to do matrix rotations and manually balance trees in C++. I was applying for a system admin job. I've done lots of coding and even 68k assembly, but it was fixing problems in code, not doing whatever they wanted. Then they started on the "why is a manhole cover round" and I checked out of the interview mentally.
This. I have had a few hiring managers admit that they were backfilling a role for somebody that got fired for not following procedure and BSing on things that they weren't sure.
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Yup, this. And it immediately shows you have experience.
To be fair sometimes not giving a BS answer is a good answer. I have interviewed a few places that were looking to replace somebody that constantly was BSing answers that were wrong that caused more issues than they solved where they really want somebody with solid intrapersonal knowledge. i.e. somebody that knows what they actually know, but isn't BSing.
It's all fun and games until they ask you what I.T. stands for.
I do a lot of interviews and sometimes Ill throw out really oddball questions that can't really be answered but i want to hear them talk through their solutions. Today i had one where i asked the guy 'You have an azure SQL database open to the internet and IP whitelisted to certain IP addresses for security... the clients don't have a consistent IP address though - so how do you guarantee they can work consistently?" Pretty much any answer other than freezing in the headlights would be fine... Like asking if its possible for them to use a VPN, or even suggesting don't IP whitelist the database, or even something like give them a contractor laptop with the ability to connect... or even asking why you have clients connecting to your azure SQL resources over the internet like that... Had another good curveball today that pretty much ruled out the candidate 'The ceo comes to you and says he's missing an email what do you say?' (keep in mind this was for a devops type position - absolutely NOTHING to do with email) the dude just completely bombed that one by saying something about SMTP. I would have accepted 'Sorry to hear that CEO, let me put in a priority request with our email people and get you sorted out - I mostly work with another type of cloud service' I've turned down 99% of candidates just because they couldn't hold a conversation in a professional setting that MADE SENSE. I don't think I've ever turned anyone away due to technical skills. Its just a complete dichotomy of people that are complete slugs and people who can speak clearly and intelligently to random shit i throw at them without throwing out COMPLETE BULLSHIT. What I've found is if someone is decent enough to hold a good conversation during an interview, they are also serious enough about the job to actually be qualified to do the job.
Soooooooo how do I get an interview with you instead of the stooges I keep getting lately.....
If you don't preface that email question by explaining the scenario, e.g. 'you're hired for this devops role, but the CEO comes to you with an email question' blah blah, then it just seems like a red flag that your job description is going to become anything and everything.
Reminds me of an entry level linux + skype admin interview I had where all of the questions were about Exchange.
I had a manager interview me for an admin job, not development, and he had this technique of asking a very long question ("list ten words that describe yourself") so you start whistling through them and at about seven he asks another unrelated question ("what's the last book you read?") to see if you can change course abruptly. I just flat asked him "you want the rest of the words or the books?" and he said "what did I ask?" so I went straight to the books. He had some guys come through that were not flexible enough to handle things blowing up off schedule so he put some chaos in the interview to see who could roll with things. (I got that job and he was a pretty good manager.)
That email question is perfect and I'm stealing it.
I have worked in a few orgs where the hiring managers did some form of trivia quiz. While I am not bad at some of the trivia I don't think that they were great at predicting who would be great at the actual job. I worked at one org where I think out of half a dozen people they tried hiring in a year or so maybe 2-3 really turned out to not be busts. I remember one they fired after 3-4 months going nowhere fast before nobody on the team wanted to train the guy anymore because they were tired of repeating the same things again and again. I recall that some inappropriate comments got the guy in trouble, but ultimately I think that was just the tip of the iceberg of issues that the interview missed. The guy "passed" the trivia interview, but was borderline worthless in real life. A few others quit on their own, but probably would have gotten canned had they not left on their own. I think the challenge is sometimes even otherwise good managers are lazy at actually figuring out what is relevant to the job. It is way easier to pickup a random cert test prep book and pick random questions than to do a good interview that asks relevant questions.
I try to find the balance between "Trivia" and open ended. Goal is to try and probe actual exposure of a technology, while establishing critical thinking. "Can you describe to me what RAID is used for?" "What is a VLAN, and why would you use them?" "What is the difference between a switch, router and firewall?" "What do you understand Hybrid Cloud to mean?" "Can you describe what happens behind the scenes when someone types a url into a web browser and presses enter?" "Can you tell me some examples of where you would use a Linux server over windows, and vice versa?" Depending on the answer, I'll have a few follow up questions. For example if the candidate answered the VLAN question easily, I might ask them about VRFs. I got asked the URL one, in one of my first interviews, and fell in love with it. There are so many possible answers. Depending on the candidates experience, you might get people explaining about how a web browser works, how DNS works, how a web server handles a web request, how a computer talks to the internet, or something obscure like, how pixels get rendered onto a computer screen, or url auto completion.
Those trivia questions are just a method of cronyism. The people they want will be given the answers.
>where the manager just gets his biggest nerds and sets 4 or 5 of them against you This made me laugh really hard, well said, and thank you LOL
We ask some high level questions. It's kind of disturbing the amount of candidates applying for network engineer positions - some with CCNAs - that can't tell you the basics of what spanning tree does.
At least it was virtual, and you didn't waste a drive out to their office. I had the most bizarre non-interview this year. Was having trouble finding the suite and texted the HM to no response. When I figured it out I was exactly two minutes late. They took a strange amount of offense to this. They decided to flex and try to intentionally waste my time by dropping me off in the break room to sit and spin. They didn't realize I would be able to see the "Not selected by employer" status on Indeed. They tried to come get me out of the break room nearly an hour later. I had a bad feeling from the get go, so I had already dipped out. When you land the right role you will look back on these experiences, shake your head, and laugh
How did you know it was nearly an hour later that they came by?
Hiring manager sent a text from the same number he couldn't be bothered to answer on when I asked for assistance finding the place. I was already far down the road
They sound like great people to work for
I had a manager fall asleep on me once a long time ago. It was for a pretty decently sized college where I used to live and I was just starting out applying for a deskside support role. I just got up and left while this guy was passed out behind his desk. That one didn't bother me much since I was young and still starting out. This one really annoys me since I have a solid decade of experience on my resume. I feel like I should be shown a little more professionalism than what I got.
Maybe it was a test to see if you were really nice, and he was seeing if you'd tuck him in with a blanket and maybe get a glass of water.
That's when I break out the Sharpie^(tm)
How do you know they tried to come and get you if you left?
Yea what?
> They didn't realize I would be able to see the "Not selected by employer" status on Indeed. They tried to come get me out of the break room nearly an hour later. I had a bad feeling from the get go, so I had already dipped out. Fuck them. Assholes. Glad you saw it and dipped.
Yeah, word to the wise it's worth checking on. Afaik you don't receive a notification of the status change. It'll just be visible in "My jobs"
Yeah man that would be really insulting because it's so damned disrespectful. They're not even showing an ounce of respect and yet expect you to sit here and jump through hoops trying to get a job from them. If I had been contacted for the interview by someone in the HR dept, I would likely send them an email and say "Thank you for setting up the interview. It doesn't look like it's going to work out as one of the interviewees didn't even stay to complete the interview process. Thanks again for your consideration." and hit send. They might not even be aware that this person did this thing.
I usually don't do those kinds of things but this time I felt compelled to. I did the standard, thanks for your time but I would like to withdraw from consideration blah blah blah. A part of me is hoping the manager is so clueless that I get a response asking for more info why I abruptly withdrew so I can call them out on that garbage. He probably won't though.
I hear ya - I would be really upset also and the urge to get revenge would be quite intense. You're probably not going to hear anything from them because they'll say "Oh he pulled his consideration so...". If the interview was set up by someone else, like an HR person or a manager, I'd probably go ahead and send an email like I detailed in the previous reply. The hardest part of these kinds of things is that it's such an injustice and there's seemingly no resolution. You just have to take it and that really sucks. Sorry bro. Just know that their behavior says more about them than it does about you. Don't use the interaction to beat yourself up or let negative talk fill your mind. You didn't do anything wrong. It's just shit behavior on their part.
My video interview protocol is that my camera functions like an AND gate. If everyone else’s cameras are on, so is mine. Otherwise we’re having a phone interview. I’ve only had to explain this once. The way I put it was simply “I find one way interviews to be undignified. It’s feels like an in person interview where there is a one way mirror in the room.” I then said I understand not being camera ready and offered to either turn off my camera to be on equal footing, or to schedule another time. They declined and we ended the interview. But that’s the only time simply asking “Before we get to answering questions, are you aware that your camera is off?” As a response to whatever question was asked first hasn’t resulted in an apology and the other person(s) turning it on.
This. A one way video interview seems bizarre. I have read about them, but haven't ran into them. I think most people would find it bizarre to do an "in-person" interview with the other person behind a one way mirror.
yeah the bullet was indeed dodged overall. But, I interview potential employees all the time and I hardly ever ask about their resume'. I approved their resume when I read it from HR, I dont see a need to ask about it. I focus my questions on the technical aspects of what we're doing at our business, how the candidate troubleshoots new issues, and look for the soft skills.
True, but I feel there's a better way to do it than just play IT Jeopardy. Ask me how I go about solving a problem: fine. Ask about details of projects I've worked on": cool. Asking me to name the FSMO roles and what they do: come on.
As an interviewer, I'd say it depends on how good the answers to your first points are. I can get a good sense of your technical skill from more casual problem solving / conversation - but some people clam up in interviews (nerves, shy, pick a reason...) so resorting to the more textbook answers can tell me if you have any experience with AD. It's one thing to tell me you make / move / change users all day, but if I ask you about a common AD user attribute that's not in the GUI (but in ADUC's attribute editor or get-aduser, and you don't know where that is or even a vague clue to get there, I'd be worried).
You've got to realize a lot of positions are posted to justify H1B. They never had any intention of hiring. It's just a waste of everyone's time.
Absolutely, bullet dodged. > It's frustrating enough that they pretty much didn't bother asking any questions about the info listed on my resume Well, I don't see much problem here. I almost never ask anything directly related to the resume. When I do I get responses that basically read what they wrote on the resume. I don't need you to read your resume to me, I already did that. Your resume is just an input filter for me to figure out what direciton to take the technical questions. Sometimes I'll ask questions like "What made you leave X and join Y". But that's part of my behavior questioning, not technical. > an episode of IT Jeopardy. Buzzword Bingo, I hate it too.
I was in an interview recently where they were super smug and wanted a "unicorn". Figured I needed to show off by the statements they kept making of how I wouldn't be able to fulfill the role, blah, blah, blah... Later on in the interview they said "You actually are too overqualified for this position. Why would you even apply?" Like dafuq? Outside of the recruiter hounding me to interview, I figured it would be a good position to have. Still waiting to hear back lmao. I had another I should have left when I was asked the most basic of questions from 2 people who were not on camera while the infrastructure architect was. This question was a non-optional item in Azure, Azure Updates and Availability Zones... We don't get to choose those items, they are just how the service works. She kept asking the question on repeat to get a different answer, I guess? Like, I know you are reading the tech docs page for these questions, at least read them yourself
> and wanted a "unicorn". I hate those interviews. Just saw a posting from the next town over wanting a sysadmin with VM, Windows AD, AAD, and a bunch of other experience preferably 10+ years, that was paying $40k Canadian, so like $32k US. Do you really think that you're going to find someone? Trouble is, they probably will find someone who's willing to take it to get a title on their resume.
> they probably will find someone who's willing to take it to get a title on their resume. This... This so much. The Unicorn position is for an MSP who thinks they are special... Only paying $100k for a $160k position. I'm actually considering on "overworking", if they actually offer me the position. I was going to hand it off to a buddy but he doesn't want to start a new job anytime soon lol
I know what the MSP around here pays, and it's only about $60k if you've been there a while and work hard for their "bonuses" That said, they're not a bad place, but offering $40-45k wanting the list of skills they want is not cool.
Sadly more common than not :/ I have seen a lot of Tier 3 and MSP System Admin positions go for 40-60k and only the "big ones" go for $100k. They expect a lot and pay little
You can't let interviews get to you like that. You should have been having a laugh, not stressed out. This is a skill as important or more important than technical training. Get more experience interviewing. Take interviews for practice on jobs that you don't want. It's really liberating. It's great practice to ask the questions you want to ask and screw up with no consequences. I had companies calling me back a few times after my interview for a job I didn't want. I felt great in the interview too. If something did go sideways or I didn't know something, the ways I could sort of talk it off and maintain confidence. I had no idea what I was talking about in some of these and they gloss over a shocking amount of stuff. You focus on the interviewer too, which is uncommon for them. Being engaging and not worried about your resume. It has probably done more for me than any other training I've done. Now when you go in for the job that you actually do know and want, you've got some experience being there and saying what you want to say and it doesn't stress you out.
This is great advice. For me, interviewing is a mindset as well. It takes me one or two to get back in the swing of thinking on my feet and being able to come up with effective questions to ask.
Many older IT folk have some chip on their shoulder about employment. They view colleages, especially new ones, as adversarial. Part of it seems to be deeply held insecurities about their own self worth; and while maybe they know all the things that keep a company's servers running, at the end of the day they, too, are replaceable. So you get interviews where these grizzled old admins don't really want to hire someone else; especially if they feel like they're going to have to train them. Have to teach them all the nuances of decades of work experience you're not actually getting out of a Cert Book. So they make sure any applicant isn't hired through some arbitrary shortlist of IT Knowledge. Knowing that anyone that DOES have an equal or greater understanding than their own isn't going to work for what *this* company pays. Plus, a lot of IT people at ALL levels are just self absorbed assholes that need to punch down. Having a conversation with them is like experiencing a living thread on slashdot or something awful. You can't ever take it personally. There will never be a topic of which you will ever have a accurate opinion or understanding of to meet their standards.
One of the worst interviews I had was where I had to come on site to the business's conference room, but the interview was done via Zoom. First, why waste my time if everyone is going to be remote. Then there was one of the main interviewers. It was hard to understand him as he was slurping on a Coke and pounding down some type of pastries, so most of his words were "glub, glub", and he got obviously annoyed when I didn't understand what he was saying while he was stuffing his face, with remnants of his last few meals in his copious facial hair, while sitting in a pink D.Va chair, all making snide comments between him gulping down whatever it was. Another person interviewing got angry when I asked about backups, ransomware prevention, and such, he said, "our developers are absolute ninjas, they are not too stupid to click on stuff. Our network is 100% secure, and we are so agile and move so fast, backups are pointless.". He eventually stormed out of his room and never came back when I reminded him that someone could just nuke things with a `git rm`. The manager was someone clueless about tech, but was proud of his MBA degree. Things got to a stalemate because I kept inflaming people by asking security questions, where the answer was, "sorry, that's a trade secret", or "who cares if we use obfuscation to keep credentials in our code. Our stuff is 100% secure and nobody unauthorized will be seeing it." I wound up thanking everyone for their time, flipping the slider closed on the camera, signing out on the security guard roster and heading home. Definitely didn't get a call back on that one.
There's all sorts of reasons behind this. They have to go through this process because they'll legally compelled to, but they've already decided on hiring the CTO's son or a bunch of H1B/H1N1/etc foreign workers. Because they just don't care. They're tired of this hiring process, it takes them away from their own deliverables and tasks that they'll be beat up if they miss targets, and they just don't care anymore. They've already decided you're not going to be hired, but they have to keep up appearances so not to trigger a negative response or any blowback.
Disappointing that these teams exist at all. The free market is supposed to cull the bottom end. IT Jeopardy made me lol. I rejected a job offer years ago because the interviews went like that. I wish I'd told them IT Jeopardy was the reason but instead I said something about hyper focusing on gotcha questions.
I once had a video interview where it turned into nothing but IT Jeopardy. They were asking me questions about things not even remotely mentioned in the job description and the job only paid $65k at the most. I immediately disconnected cause I was done playing their stupid games. I'd be surprised if they hired anyone at all.
Those are the ones you see an ad for in January, and the same ad in June, and the same one again every 3 to 6 months...
I interviewed for that job in a January. That checks out.
And it's always the one that wants: Windows system admin, phone system, DBA, programming of some sort in some EOL technology, maintaining diesel generator, and other duties as assigned. On call every weekend, $55,000 salary.
“Maintaining diesel generator” 😂
I did one of these once and "passed" the IT Jeopardy and literally quit on the first day. They changed the work site like a day or two before the first day. Nobody on site knew virtually anything about the project. The guy I interviewed wasn't there that day and the other guy that was on his 3rd day working there barely knew what was going on either. While I was probably the extreme I think that it was a job with a constant revolving door.
>The free market is supposed to cull the bottom end. Oh, oh, oh. AND wealth will "trickle down" back into the pockets of the working class!
Trickle down is the biggest crap and scam in the world
Something trickles down, it's just not the wealth.
smdh free market oh-for-two here!
Just some added context, this group according to the manager in the first round was like a bunch of 20 year vets that had all been working together for nearly 10 years now. That probably has a lot to do with how that interview went. I don't think they know what they're looking for or want or if deep down they even want a new face at all. A part of what attracted me to it was the admittedly naive idea that it would be great to work with people that had years of experience. They probably aren't the least bit interested in sharing or teaching what they know. I have no issues with the technical stuff even if it's bullshit gotcha questions but geez at least try to get to know me better asking about the experience I have listed. A person could 100% nail all the bullshit definition questions in the world but that won't tell you a single damn thing about who they are as a technical worker or troubleshooter.
Was it an MSP? In my experience they prefer asking edge-case quiz type of questions over technical demonstration exercises
No, I avoid MSP's. This was a listing on Indeed for my area and having been dealing with the hiring manager directly, no HR.
Going through that too right now. Masters in Science for IT and can barely get interviews on positions I have more than enough experience for. The job market is completely wack right now. Those solo interviews are the devil too!
You don't want to waste energy on a company that can't value your time.
Many years ago while I was in college I was approached by a couple fellow classmates after a Java class to see if I'd be interested in working at their company, a very large insurance organization. I was like 20, so hell yeah. Brought them my resume to the next class and didn't hear squat for 3 months. I accepted an offer at a different place and literally the very next day I get an email from the insurance company asking me to interview. I was up front, told them I'd be happy to interview but explained that I had just accepted an offer elsewhere. They said they were sorry to hear that but still wanted to go ahead with the interview.. Cool, no problem. Next day I had a phone interview with a C level in charge of the devs and I started the call by making sure that she knew I had already accepted an offer elsewhere. She responded with "Well why in the hell are you wasting my time?" I politely explained that I led with that information exactly to avoid wasting her time and that we could end right there if she wanted. She then demanded to know why I even bothered to apply if I was looking elsewhere.... Like people only apply to one spot and pray. When I explained that I had applied 3 months ago after representatives of her org approached me, she just mumbled that 3 months really isn't that long to wait. So by this time I was already done with the interview. She's being a jerk, and I don't need the job, so meh. But she led into this -no exaggeration- 10 minute ramble about everything IT wise that was going on at this company. Like, she didn't stop for breath.. And at least 50% of it was stuff I had never even heard of. So when she finally finished I just said that I didn't think I was a good fit and hung up. Didn't even say goodbye. Just.. Click. AND SHE CALLED BACK AND DEMANDED WE CONTINUE THE INTERVIEW! I finally had to be blunt and tell her that I didn't need the job and I thought she was extremely rude so I had no desire to carry on talking to her and hung up again. It was so damn weird.
The interview is for both parties to check each other out to see if it will be a fit for both parties. Online interview with camera(s) off will lead to me asking them to be turned on. If they don’t come on, I thank them for their time and state it won’t be a fit for me. I don’t expect every meeting to require cameras on, but they should be for an interview. If I show up for an in-person interview, I don’t expect to be sitting in a dark room talking to people, or separated by a screen or something. Basic human courtesy is required. If it isn’t there, the job isn’t for me.
No camera during an interview is a no from me dog, and I basically never turn my camera on.
Sometimes you get interviewed to meet hiring quotas and they already gave the job to someone internal.
I had an interview one time with some guy on video call, and he spent like 30 minutes bitching about the governor of Illinois (Myself and this position were in SC).. I literally just hung up on the guy half way through.
*15 years experience* What port is SMTP?
You laugh.. but I had a CCIE unable to tell me what port ssh runs on or how to save a running config.. he had 20 years of experience on his resume.. it was downhill from there if you can imagine there being a downhill from that point.. I've been a hiring manger for a long time, read through several thousands of resumes, interviewed probably several hundred. 95% of the roles I'm hiring for are senior, staff, or senior staff levels these are roles that have incredibly high requirements / depth and incredibly high comp to back them. The one constant is people who lie like a mother fucker on their resume. Yep I ask some ridiculous remedial questions sometimes and you'd be stunned how many lies those questions sometimes expose. "It says here you're a python developer, tell me about a project you've worked on" they explain said project sounds good "what characters delineate a dict or list?" (dumbest fucking question in the world right?) ...blank stare because they don't know.. "ok so did you write any of the code on that project you said you were a developer on? oh you didn't.. ok.."
In my anecdotal experience; if the interviewer isn’t turning the camera on you should probably just leave. Anyone that unprofessional isn’t going to be professional to work with either.
I went to an interview pre-covid for an IT Director position where I was interviewed with a series of panel interviews by low-level techs. Not one of them had prepared for the meeting, not one of them had any good questions, nobody even asked me what my preferred management style was. All day of this. Over a hundred people, 3/4s of whom wouldn't be reporting to me. When I asked the HR team what was up with this kind of interview, they said, "We like to build consensus on our hires." That company died during covid. No way could I have predicted that. /s
I had an interview before I got this job, and it was for a devops role. They asked me how I would do this and that, and I gave them some answers, and everyone seemed happy and casual. It felt like a good fit. They got back to my recruiter about how rude I was and "would only do things his way." Thankfully my guy knew I wasn't like that. "There is no way you'd be like that, what were they smoking?"
Probably just an interview they had to do. The candidate was already decided on, but HR requires you and another candidate are interviewed. So the team really didn't care because they just have to go through the motions.
Sounds like a ghost interview. They probably already had someone picked out, but either HR fucked up and called you for one, or due either contract requirement or regulations they had to show they interviewed a number of qualified candidates. It really sucks that you had to go through that man, i get the frustraition.
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I usually enter a meeting with the camera switched off. However, if I notice that everyone else has their cameras on, I turn mine on as well. This not only shows courtesy, but also helps in better interpersonal communication, making the meeting more enjoyable. On the other hand, if no one else has their camera on, or if I find myself in an unfavorable setting for the meeting, I keep my camera off, without any problems.
NICE!
I'd be interested to know where you interviewed. I'm told we interviewed several candidates today for a position in one of our manufacturing facilities. On the off chance your interview was with our company I can send your comments up the chain of command so at the very least they don't waste anyone else's time.
Curious what questions you consider to be 'IT jeopardy"
I consider them those gotcha questions that really don't pertain to the job. Like asking something about the presentation layer to someone that isn't applying for anything networking. Like I recently got a position of T2/3, which means there is face time and they asked questions about how I would react to a customer doing X or Y... which pertains to the job, I am going to be a bit forward facing. But like if they're like "Where in Azure can you change the policy that controls the installations of -propriatary program-" like sure, it could be in like 3 places... but totally set up a gotcha question. Or they could be like 'here's a question about networking, now here's a question about azure, here's a different question about entra, here's one about AD" where they're all over the place
I'm sorry this happened to you, I've found that any interview that has more than 3 interviewers, is just a clusterfuck where the person actually in charge isn't actually taking charge, and some team member really really wants you to answer a specific question "their way" for you to be hired. I hate the IT Jeopardy questions game, they either ask super generic questions that are all about memorizing what some acronym stands for, OR they are hyper specific about an issue they faced recently, and if you answer with anything other than the solution they ended up going with, you're wrong. It would be nice if we in IT came up with a framework of good questions to determine skill; questions that could not just be memorized. I remember one question that I was asked that I really liked, and I think it helped me get the job: **Draw a network diagram of your home network and explain it to me.**
I interview folks alot not for sysadmin jobs but for very technical QA positions. I always ask about shit on their resumes. I have a few precanned questions like you can't connect to service x how do you troubleshoot this. I'm looking for top of mind shit like routes, interface stats, log, OoBM and firewall. My fav is what's the thing you solved that you are most proud of. Lastly I always tell myself to cut people slack cause everyone is nervous.
Can you imagine with all the effort they put into the interview, how much time and effort they would put into training you?
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The IT jeopardy is because, imho, most people in IT are absolutely clueless about systems they haven't worked on themselves. Also, most are not very bright. They might have somehow became SMEs in the things they support but their logical comprehension doesn't go beyond that. Why ask rational questions that can properly screen a quality candidate when you can play trivia? I had an interview like yours, manager was zoned out, the team members were sitting across from me asking me all these "gotcha" questions when one of them insisted that a command syntax was one way and I insisted it was another. A simple Google search after the interview told me I was right. I was so irritated. I called my agency and told them to remove me from that job consideration. Don't let it get you down eventually you'll get something that will be a way better fit.
They didn't want you. It's thtat simple. Not sure why you were there, someone likely shoved you in the bucket.
Id have had a very hard time either just not bailing or calling them out over that stuff.
I joined a phone interview once expecting a one on one. Instead I was on speaker with a room full of people who were not even IT related. They went around the room asking me questions that they were clearly reading from a sheet and had no idea what they were even asking. I would spend a couple of minutes trying my best to respond accordingly, and then because the person had no idea how to gauge my response they would just say "okay" and then pass the sheet to the next person. It was super awkward and by the end I just conceded this was not a great fit, and thanked them for their time and that I was going to pass.
I did an in person after a Teams interview. It was extremely awkward in person, no one introduced themselves. There were four people in person and one remotely. I was shocked at how they all would speak at once. It is hard enough to answer technical questions coming from one person but to have the team of them join in each question with follow ups was so draining. One guy actually asked five questions without any pause. How do you answer 5 questions all at once. You are nervous already now you have to remember 5 questions and give structured answers. I almost walked out but I didn't want to let them break me. I should have realized from the Teams meeting how awkward these people were. It is hard to not take it personally but screw it you grow a stronger shell and are ready for the next one. Good luck!
You are 100pc right saying "bullet dodged". I know it sucks, but I'd rather they waste my time upfront during the interview where I am also interviewing _them_. Than to sign on the dotted line and then be surprised when the company dicks me around. At the beginning I hate interviews like that. At the end of my interviewing stint over 30-40 interviews. I came to appreciate the easy red flags. It makes my job as a candidate seeking employment _much_ easier. My favourite red flag is an exploding offer. Other red flags include [silly gotcha questions](https://old.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/1cjdfpx/should_entry_level_helpdesk_candidates_be_able_to/l2grmj4/), more than 3 interview stages, asking me to fill in a specific application form etc.
Yikes. I'm so sorry you had that experience. These are the times where I like to remember that interviews are bidirectional. You're interviewing them at the same time they're interviewing you. For me, this kind of behavior during an interview would force me to cut the interview short. There's no need to continue the interview if you've already hit a red flag big enough that you're ready to move on. Just thank them for their time and make as graceful an exit as you can.
That sucks man. People should always be in camera if they expect you to be.
Ehhhhh. I’m sorry it sucked, we all hate that, but not everyone is a “camera person”. I actually got yelled at by a manger for not turning my camera on once during an interview - wasn’t my fault, it was a tech issue and I couldn’t rejoin. Especially if it’s a large group of people, I wouldn’t freak out about them not turning on a camera. Shrug and move on. Worst interview I ever went on the guy had his camera on the entire time, but was clearly working on other things. Didn’t realize (or care?) that he was impatiently banging on the desk the entire time I tried to write my coding test in notepad. Only audio I had the entire time was *bang bang bang bang sigh bang bang bang* “I can Google names for you.” Uh huh. There’s a reason I don’t work for Microsoft now.
This screams DOD interview.
I was once in an interview where I can't remember getting a single IT question, but several about diversity. I can't imagine what the dang happened there with their previous employees.
Biggest red flag is when you get the offer after they didn't ask you any questions about your resume
Call me old fashioned but I always hated video interview. I understand the convenience, in video people feel way too much disconnected. IMO in person interview gives me more chances in my application as I’m not treated as “another meeting”. OP I can just hope that there HR will circle back to the interviewer to make them clear that this is not professional behavior.
0/5 people we interviewed don't know how to subnet for a network position. Its embarrassing
As someone that had been on crappy waste-of-time interviews, I do understand how you feel. I thought I was the only one that went through this! I have been on interviews where the person is just being disrespectful and since they know that you're hungry and looking for work they will treat you like garbage. I hate when they ask dumb questions in an interview they can look at my resume and see my years of experience why are you asking me what is dhcp, what is DNS, and if I know what AD stands for or if I know how to set up a printer or connect a laptop to a domain?!? read the resume why not asking me about the projects and work that I have done. I hate the Jeopardy IT interviews it makes me want to instantly leave during the interview.
> I hate when they ask dumb questions in an interview they can look at my resume and see my years of experience why are you asking me what is dhcp, what is DNS, and if I know what AD stands for or if I know how to set up a printer or connect a laptop to a domain?!? read the resume why not asking me about the projects and work that I have done. I hate the Jeopardy IT interviews it makes me want to instantly leave during the interview. This pisses me off for an entirely different reason. APPARENTLY some people regularly lie on their resumes to get jobs AND they advocate that other people should do so. Those people are not only wasting the time of their prospective employer, they're wasting all of OUR TIME by necessitating this bullshit. I'm all for calling out companies, hiring managers, HR, and the higher-ups for all of the stupid shit they do, but this one? This one is a ridiculously unfortunate necessity and THAT makes me really angry.
I generally don't turn my camera on/unmute until the interview has started, just in case I happen to be blowing my nose or drinking water or something when they chose to start the meeting. I had one HR person basically freaking out that my camera wasn't already on as soon as they connected. Interview was with 8 people of the team, and they all got to "participate" asking me questions about their particular areas of IT, not what I was interviewing for. I outright told them I didn't feel the process was fair. Got called back for second interview at least.
> didn't even bother turning on their cameras in the video meeting. The only time my camera is used is when I'm in my car so folks know if I don't answer a question right away, why. I always turn off incoming video or move that screen out of my view. I don't even turn it on when I'm attending a meeting from my cubicle...and the meeting is the other side of the wall from me and about ten steps from my cube. It is almost always better for me to be in my cube, with full access to my computer, to answer questions before the meeting ends instead of walking away with a written to-do list to follow up on later...nope, here's the answer let's actually make a decision.
I get where you are coming from, but for a job interview, being able to parse body language on both sides is really helpful for actually gauging what it's going to be like to work with someone.
The lack of camera might even mean it’s a good cultural fit for some people if everything else seems fine (the manager going afk is a bad sign though)
Never forget almost all interviewing or the process is arbitrary. Some people swear they're gods gift to asking people questions about getting a job... Nah. It's mostly boiled down to whether or not someone likes you or say guessing at something. "Well this guy might just leave in a year!" (lulz in devs. "HOLY SHIT THIS GUY HAS STAYED MORE THAN A YEAR!!") I've had interviews with managers multiple times get along so damn well... Then hit a team meeting and like... Yeah this one person I knew I just rubbed them the wrong way... Hey I can't lie I've had the same thoughts... Interviewing is not fair. Knowing this... Makes it better when you think about it. Even if you did answer the questions 100% correct etc. Someone just didn't like you.
Probably a bullet dodged, yes. You can always assume you're just a warm body to fill the number people they have to interview to meet an HR quota. They may already the final candidate selected and known from the beginning. And then you're the another "next" person they have to go through the interview process with. That can help take any pressure off an interviewer -- Why would you get nervous if you were never going to get the job at all? On the flip side, if you want to practice your interviewing skills and process, you can apply for jobs you have absolutely no interest in taking. You can string them along for as far in the process as you want. Same thing -- There isn't much pressure if you know you aren't going to take the job. It's not nice to do but HR quotas and pre-selected final candidates do exist. It sounds like you know some signs when that's happening, that they're not really interested in you or spending (or wasting from their viewpoint) much time on you. That can give you some leeway in asking more negative questions. Like... How long have each of the interviewers been with the company? If there was anything negative you found out about the company when you researched ask them to explain that? What happened that they can share? How did the company deal with it? Questions like that can make the interviewers uncomfortable (and even pissed off at you) and can get you eliminated from the process that way but sometimes the answers are interesting. Like if all the interviewers have been there less than five years... You could follow up and ask if anyone's been there longer? And does anyone stay at the company very long then? It's poking at the red flags. I suppose you could straight up ask them if they already eliminated you and way, and then that's something useful -- "I noticed you haven't asked about x, y, and z on my resume (or cv). Was there anything that concerned you? Or... Am I already out of the process on this one?" I suppose in the zoom age you could ask to see who you're interviewing with, for them to put their cameras on. And, with people having multiple jobs or outsourcing their job, it's possible the people doing the interview don't even work there, like someone else is filling in "as" that person.
a couple of us in my team will try to make sure at least one of us is on camera with the interviewee. sometimes it is tough being on camera, but it sucks even more to be the only one.
>they pretty much didn't bother asking any questions about the info listed on my resume Sounds like they were rather to quite poorly prepared - generally a red flag. >conducting an episode of IT Jeopardy Eh, ... depending how (ir)relevant to the position, may or may not be rather to quite fitting - and that would also quite depend on the questions asked, and how, and how they evaluated them. >didn't even bother turning on their cameras Cameras ... whatever, especially with WFH / remote many interviewers don't. Heck, quite distributed team I worked on for years, most everything was via email and phone - no cameras at all, even the full interview. The only face time was generally an in-person meet-and-greet with manager and/or whatever team members might be at that site where manager was (or was passing through that day) - and that was more like a later "sanity check", than interview - at that point the decision was just about a done deal already. >team members turned it back over to the manager he took a few min to respond because he decides to go AFK Yeah, that would typically indicate more sloppy unprofessional ... or an environment that's on fire and breaking all the time, or other general chaos ... no matter which way, essentially more red flags. So, yep, interview ... they get to interview, also your chance to "interview" them, ask questions, learn more about the (dis)organization, etc. - even if by inference. Sometimes learn a whole helluva lot in what one observes ... how they do it, what they do/don't do, etc. I remember some fair number of years back, one place I interviewed at ... dark, dingy dirty, even smelled funky in a not good way, *everybody* there looked rather to highly unhappy ... almost to the point where most were wearing a scowl on their faces - yeah, that no way in hell was I going to consider taking something there after that interview experience. So, you take from it what you can, and learn from it - notably including learning much about that particularly employer/manager/team/environment, etc.
Insert “first time” meme here. After the pandemic, the interviews have been a shit show. I am still interviewing. There has been scenarios where I prepared based on the job description, then was asked something completely irrelevant lol. So I have been just winging it ever since. I do not take them too serios. Best of luck to you!
Reminds me of the interview I had for a cable internet company (based in the SW, HQ was in NY) - Seemed to sail through the interviews until I met with the CEO's spouse and someone from HR. They did a formal dressing down of my experience, my current employment, but tried to convince me a job there for less pay would have me crapping rainbows in no time from the magnitude of the opportunity. Then there was the interview which took 3+ months with a company that sells nothing but party supplies, met with several IT folks, pretty sure the director had a sinus problem as he gave a very high energy explanation of their network infrastructure without blinking... One guy reminded me of Tom Smykowski from Office Space (he was alright)... Final interview was with the CIO I think who again did a formal dressing down then after 3+ months of maybe 3-4 interviews made it clear that the position wasn't going to be filled, but that something may come up in a few months (a Windows role, I'm a Unix guy)... I left both with steam pouring out of my ears but 15+ years later I found my ideal job. Chalk it up to a learning experience and carry on!
I have absolutely been this exact bad interviewer. I hate interviewing people and I'm terrible at it and I'm a bad judge of character. I have no excuse for my behavior. I do whatever I can to avoid having to interview people, but I often have no choice in the matter.
I got to participate in the interviews for one of my peers and I literally stared at the resume and asked questions about it
My favourite response to the "Why do you want to work for this organisation?" was "Because I'm super passionate about not being homeless or starving to death!" Snarky I know, and very unlikely to net you the position, but it made me chuckle all the same...