Re:Top Ways to Blow a Job Interview
by jrockway on Friday January 07, 2011 @12:38PM
(#2080240)
The first few things don't bother me. Running late? Who cares? Wearing a T-Shirt? Excellent, so am I. Your cell phone rings? Hit decline and move on. (Or hey, maybe your kid is dying. Take the call.)
The only thing that's ever bothered me is when someone doesn't know the answer to a technical question, and then aggressively bullshits me.
Example: we ask, "so, you've used Perl OO before, can you write us an example class on the board". He does, and instead of "my $self = shift" or "my ($self) = @_" in the methods, he writes "my $self = $_". Easy thing to miss on a whiteboard, no big deal. We ask, "are you sure it's my $self = $_?" he replies, "yes definitely". We mention that it would be $_[0] or @_ or shift, but he starts yelling about how $_ and $_[0] are the same thing.
They're not. No hire.
(And if he had said something like, "oh, it's so weird looking on the whiteboard, I'm not really sure", that would have been fine. Next question, plenty of time to redeem yourself. But if you are going to yell about a trivial mistake... well, I'm glad we caught this in the interview. Not only do you not know Perl, you aren't even nice.)
The only thing that's ever bothered me is when someone doesn't know the answer to a technical question, and then aggressively bullshits me.
Example: we ask, "so, you've used Perl OO before, can you write us an example class on the board". He does, and instead of "my $self = shift" or "my ($self) = @_" in the methods, he writes "my $self = $_". Easy thing to miss on a whiteboard, no big deal. We ask, "are you sure it's my $self = $_?" he replies, "yes definitely". We mention that it would be $_[0] or @_ or shift, but he starts yelling about how $_ and $_[0] are the same thing.
They're not. No hire.
(And if he had said something like, "oh, it's so weird looking on the whiteboard, I'm not really sure", that would have been fine. Next question, plenty of time to redeem yourself. But if you are going to yell about a trivial mistake... well, I'm glad we caught this in the interview. Not only do you not know Perl, you aren't even nice.)