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Describe the job interview you'll never forget!

Madza on October 16, 2020

Most of you have most likely gone through a lot of interviews to build your career path, so have an advantage to compare some interviews over the o...
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Louis Low • Edited

@madza 's post topics always make his fans deep-dive into their consciousness and make the sleeping cognitive reactivated.

My unforgettable job interview was, after the end of the meeting, the CEO asked me to wear a t-shirt in red because he loves to see that. I was 24.

@madza you owed me 10 unicorns.

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Madza • Edited

Hahah, this is too good to be true πŸ˜ƒπŸ˜ƒJust made my day πŸŽ‰
I always believed that key to productivity is to be consciousness, as by default the human mind is lazy and don't like to process tasks. βœ¨πŸ§™β€β™‚οΈ

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Louis Low • Edited

You did that consciousness trick to us. We love that and become smarter and thirst for more of your unbelievable new posts. Is that postgasm?

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Madza • Edited

Hahah, stop it πŸ˜ƒπŸ˜ƒ Lots of more talented writers here πŸ˜‰
I wish I would have technical knowledge like you, looking at the projects you've done πŸ› πŸ”₯πŸ”₯

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Louis Low

I am not the hero in this post, you are!

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Madza

All the DEV community is awesome! ✨✨
When it comes to discussions like these, I always try to credit people who create the real additional value of the post in the comments πŸ”₯πŸ”₯
Without you all the posts would be just title and description of my initial thoughts on the topic πŸ˜‰ Thanks for the input! πŸ™β€

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Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

I got my first job at a consulting company, I was interviewed by a commercial who understood nothing about programming, he only cared that I had a master degree, so no technical question at all, but he did tell me I had to learn to dress better. In retrospect I think I should not have accepted a job at a company that sorts out candidates this way :)

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Aarif

I hope you're not still working there

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Madza

That could be even crazier to work on a company like that afterward.. πŸ˜‰ No one to ask anything coding related and no understanding of the development process for those who work there πŸ˜‰

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Jean-Michel πŸ•΅πŸ»β€β™‚οΈ Fayard

What do you mean you have coding questions? You studied programming already, right?

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Madza • Edited

Sure thing you can code on your own and purely independently πŸ˜‰ tho it's always nice to have a team around in case you come across a problem that is not your direct expertise πŸ˜‰ sometimes it's just easier to ask πŸ˜‰

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Isabel Nyo

Who would look after your child when you’re at work?

This interview happened not too long after my maternity leave. I told the interviewer that the reason for a few months gap in my resume was due to my maternity leave. I was busy looking after a new born. He then raised his eyebrows and asked, β€œWho would look after your child when you’re at work?” I replied, β€œOh my daughter goes to a daycare and she loves it.” My reply was immediately followed by another question, β€œWhat if we need you to come in to the office after hours if something goes wrong. As a manager, you’re expected to be on-call 24/7 for the codebases your team owns because we haven’t set up a proper on-call roster.”

I think I didn’t provide a satisfactory answer to that question because after that, the interview didn’t go very well and it was cut short. It was supposed to be an hour interview but I was out of the interview room after half an hour. I also didn’t get the job. Looking back, I consider myself lucky.

I won't forget this interview because it reminds me that inequality still exists in 21st century. Sad but true.

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Madza • Edited

Looking back, I consider myself lucky.

Agree with all πŸ’― Plus I would probably reply something in the lines of 'obviously we are wasting each others time' and kindly leave πŸ˜‰
All the best for your daughter, btw πŸŒ·πŸ™

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John Peters • Edited

Mine was interviewing for a startup. It was in a converted warehouse with shiny concrete floors. 20 haphazardly arranged desks, wires everywhere. Young guns were everywhere glued to computer screens typing like crazy. There were no offices so I was asked to interview in the foyer which had a small table. Chairs had to be brought out to seat everyone. I had my laptop which had work I would demo. But I couldn't log in. Later finding one of the keys weren't working. Strike 1. So I danced by jumping to the nearby whiteboard and stared diagramming Architectural patterns. The hiring manager interrupting with frequent minute corrections. Strike 2.

Still dancing but thinking this guy isn't a leader he's a critic. Strike 3. Things went foggy after that for me.

The last thing I remember was that the HR person was asking for feedback. It was then that I zeroed in on the critic, telling the HR person I'd never be able to work for him. She wanted to know why, I told her and left. She was shocked.

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Madza

Props for speaking up and being honest πŸ˜‰
That was probably eye-opening for them too, as they became aware as that attitude will most likely never found a candidate willing to work for them πŸ˜‰

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Sylvie Fiquet

After I had my first child I interviewed at a local company because I wanted to reduce my commute time.

First thing I learned is that they were planning to move soon, to the same town I was currently working in. So much for cutting commute time. That wasn't their fault but I really wished they had mentioned it in the ad.

At the time I worked mainly in C++. The project manager who interviewed me asked me a technical question, which I answered with C++ terms. That's not what he wanted. He told me that what I had just described was called "polymorphism" and launched into a lecture about the concept. He just assumed that I didn't know what I was talking about. That was grating.

The icing on the cake was when it was mentioned that employees had to leave the site at lunch time to prevent industrial espionage (the software I was supposed to write was to run on proprietary hardware).

I have no idea what is standard in the hardware industry, but I came out of there thinking "Why would I want to work for a company that assumes I'm a thief?"

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D\sTro

It was around 5-6 years ago. I found it terrific. Interviewer kept asking question by taking a look at his PC. I gave answers but he just wanted to hear whatever was on his screen. I mean how could anyone tell exactly the sentence if the question is about write a fibonacci method in js

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ItsASine (Kayla)

This was when I was looking prior to graduation. My desire was to make money, and I wasn't particularly skilled at smelling BS from job postings.

A large, national (maybe even international) company was opening a new tech office downtown. I put my resume in during the school career fair, and they call me up to do an initial in-person interview. A few people from the main office flew in and were just going to work through as many applicants as they could that day. So I put on my one suit and get my boyfriend to take time off to drive me downtown for this interview.

It was awful. As I said, I gave my resume to the recruiter rather than putting it in for a specific role. It ends up, that's because they were doing 1 interview for at least 8 roles within the new office. Anywhere from DBA to software dev to non-technical business stuffs... I really have no clue since it's not like they could speak to what the job would be like when it was actually several possible jobs. Each person on the panel would decide if they wanted to continue the process with you for their branch of job functionality, so there were no specifics. The interview was just fluff where they can't ask anything pointed about me and I can't ask anything pointed about them. Apparently, each branch was management track though, so they wanted college grads? I just wanted to eat and know what I'm doing, but at no point could they prove that was ever a possibility.

Boyfriend and I just kind of spent the rest of the day being tourists downtown before heading back to campus since we paid for parking. A couple of months later, I got an email saying they had gone through 3 rounds of picking people that I was skipped for, so did I want to be still in consideration for the next round? I bowed out.

While it wasn't offensive or anything, I needed a job so badly and was in a hole of despair and it was just a terrible crushing experience that made everything feel more hopeless.