Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens

Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by ericbarrett on Friday December 10, 2021 @10:16PM (#29518083)

I still recall an interview I did at a recently public company in New York, for a DevOps position. 4/5 of the interviews went sailingly, with heavy emphasis on networking, scripting, and AWS knowledge. Then the lead engineer sailed in, five minutes late. He gave me an algorithm question straight from the Google playbook (I don't remember the question, sadly), then after I asked for a few minutes to ponder, proceeded to smirk and interrupt me every 30 seconds to ask if I needed help. In between he was chatting on his phone with the audible keybord ticks enabled.

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by zerocount on Saturday December 11, 2021 @04:05AM (#29519567)

This happened to me at a recent Google interview. It was the last interview of 5 and the guy gave me a gnarly graph problem. I was trying to wrap my head around it, but he kept interrupting me and giving me unwanted help. I ended up getting writer's block and just mentally shutdown because he wouldn't let me have time to think. He ended the interview early because of poor performance.

It made me feel like I didn't know anything and was very embarassing. It also changed my outlook on Google, and I'll never interview with them again.

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by derwiki on Saturday December 11, 2021 @04:10AM (#29519594)

That’s rough. But sounds like an unpleasant work environment so at least you short-circuited that!

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by echelon on Friday December 10, 2021 @11:14PM (#29518360)

What an ass. I wish there was a way to report bad interviewers.

Maybe some tech media company will do hidden camera interviews and publish a scathing rebuke of the practice.

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by dehrmann on Saturday December 11, 2021 @12:31AM (#29518702)

> I wish there was a way to report bad interviewers.

You can always tell the recruiter/coordinator. It's just tricky because you don't want to burn bridges, doing it before you hear back could be read as you asking for a do-over, doing it after could come across as bitter.

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by geoduck14 on Saturday December 11, 2021 @12:25PM (#29522571)

We are hiring at my company. We ALWAYS value feedback. Last week we heard someone had a bad experience and the feedback was taken seriously, and without resentment.

If you have a good or bad experience, PLEASE consider telling the recruiter know.

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by baskethead on Saturday December 11, 2021 @10:54AM (#29521719)

Recruiters don’t care. I’ve had some of the rudest interviews recently and complained to the recruiter and they completely ignored me.

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by b3morales on Saturday December 11, 2021 @02:35PM (#29523550)

Depends on the recruiter and their relationship to the company.

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by nijave on Saturday December 11, 2021 @12:12AM (#29518624)

Some companies will ask for feedback after the interview and there's sites like Glassdoor.

The last place I did interviews at, we'd bring all interviewers into a quick debrief meeting and talk about whether to give the candidate an offer (going off the notes we took during the sessions). It was pretty obvious if someone had a particularly bad session and could be weighted against other peoples' input

Unfortunately it can be really hit and miss

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by ushakov on Friday December 10, 2021 @11:19PM (#29518383)

there’s a site in Russian, ebanoe.it (translated: f*cked IT) which does exactly that!

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by solididiot on Saturday December 11, 2021 @03:56AM (#29519535)

You can (and should) report to glassdoor. At least forewarn other poor souls.

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by ghaff on Saturday December 11, 2021 @09:41AM (#29521166)

Please go off in a corner and ponder why such casual ageism is as unwelcome as casual racism or sexism and maybe just stay there until you come up with an answer.

Substitute woman for boomer in that sentence and listen to what it sounds like.

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by aigo on Saturday December 11, 2021 @10:16AM (#29521400)

I could substitute it for child, another group of people who are broadly less likely to know where the setting is, and it wouldn't be offensive that way either.

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by chiph on Saturday December 11, 2021 @10:44AM (#29521631)

As someone who was born before the moon landing and saw one of the last IMPs get installed on the ARPANET, yeah that was offensive. You should apologize.

Knowing to silence your phone in meetings is a matter of having manners, not age.

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by chiph on Saturday December 11, 2021 @01:39PM (#29523142)

See the capacitor in this closeup that kens took of a power supply module in the Apollo Guidance Computer? My dad's company made it. You are telling the wrong person that the landing was faked.

https://static.righto.com/images/agc-power/transistor-closeu...

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by aigo on Saturday December 11, 2021 @10:51AM (#29521698)

Just as no-one would begrudge a dominated race from poking fun at the dominant race, I don't see why you are so on your high horse about the dominant age group getting the same. 'Punching up' is fair game where I come from.

I'm afraid I just don't get your outrage at an innocent comment poking fun at the most dominant section of society. But, as you're the second person to have taken offence, I'm going to delete it anyway.

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by ghaff on Saturday December 11, 2021 @11:01AM (#29521800)

First of all, I'm not a particularly big fan of generational stereotypes in general, especially on a board like this that aims to do better. If I made a comment to the effect of "Zommers are the most entitled group I have ever seen," I would be (rightly) most likely downvoted to oblivion.

Secondly, I have never encountered it as a problem--at least in a way that affected me (never could really get into a dot-com company but we know how that mostly ended up). But that's mostly because I've had various roles where experience really trumped other things. But ageism is clearly an issue in tech broadly so I take issue with with the justification that it's OK to make casual cracks with the justification that it's punching up.

To say nothing that it added absolutely nothing to your comment. Rude interviewers are the issue. Not some imagined inability for older individuals to silence their phones.

Finally, I'm not sure doubling down on the oppressed race thing helps your argument--especially given what the age breakdown in tech looks like.

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by justin66 on Saturday December 11, 2021 @11:49AM (#29522230)

Ah yes, racial humor. That will never fail you in business provided you deliver it the appropriate way. Good luck with your interviews, you’re going to do great!

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Re:Ten years of experience, still failing phone screens by ghaff on Saturday December 11, 2021 @10:30AM (#29521523)

Yeah. Go ahead and double down. If you don't see the difference you're just the sort of person who I wish would just get out of tech.

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