Comment by antran22 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by antran22 | Hacker News Reader

I have had my fair share of terrible interview as well. The key thing I learnt is that the interview is an opportunity for me to understand the culture of the company and judge my fit there as well. I know that the phrase "dodge a bullet" is used to death in those kind of situation, but if the interviewer is behaving unprofessionally you can safely assume the people in the company will be unprofessional in a lot more other area.

As an instance, I had an interview with a CEO of a consulting firm. He took the interview while on the metro, so half the time on the call I couldn't hear what he said at all. When the call ended, I send a message to the HR person giving quite a critical feedback and stopping any further process with the company. A few months later I talked with one of my friend who worked there for 3 months. The CEO and the legal department overlooked some certain paperworks with regard to employment insurance, and when the taxman came and gave them a heavy fine, they hide the situation from everybody until the situation became unfixable. The company went bankrupt essentially overnight and most of the employees has a 1-year plus insurance gap with no practical way to sue for it back.

Moral of the story: if the interview feels wrong, email them and decline going forward right away. Give yourself the satisfaction of consciously dodging a bullet.

>Moral of the story: if the interview feels wrong, email them and decline going forward right away. Give yourself the satisfaction of consciously dodging a bullet.

I wished I had known this earlier in my life.

I once interviewed at a healthcare startup ran by the brother of someone very closely related to the current occupant of the White House. This was 3 weeks after I graduated college.

I went through the first round, no problem. 2nd round, it was Halloween, and a nurse dressed up as a cow (spotted makeup and all) comes into the room and asks me to role play a situation where I have to deny life-saving insurance claims to a cancer patient who's been given a life threatening diagnosis.

Halfway through the exercise I asked the interviewer - "so, this is an insurance company, and the insured has been paying premiums for a while, probably 10s of thousands of dollars, and they have what is otherwise effectively a terminal diagnosis...and you're asking me to deny this person their only chance at survival?". I was given the response of "that's how insurance works"

Sad.

Indeed. I've had a bunch of jobs, and my experience has been that the job interview sort of reflects the people and structure / organization you'll be working with.

To put it this way: The best places I've worked at also had good interview rounds, while some of my least enjoyable employers had less enjoyable interview rounds. The absolute worst interviews have been at places I didn't get an offer, or I didn't pursue afterwards.

If the person interviewing me is rude, glued to their phone, uninterested, and in general indifferent to what happens - I'm going to assume that's a reflection of how the company culture is. I can also understand that not all people tasked with interviews will bring their A game every time, and that there may be external factors at play - but those places usually show a pattern.

I've yet to interview at a place where the interview was terrible all around, and then find out that the company is gold.

I'd rather work at a company where the interviewer smokes a cigarette in the conference room than one where they give off rigidly hierarchical "nobody has any agency" vibes. Sure we might go bankrupt but I'll have to put up with a whole lot less dumb "we don't pay you to think" bullshit and morale will be way higher the whole way there.

I'd rather neither firm be allowed to exist.

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