A Tale of Endless Tech Interviews

Photo by Paul Trienekens on Unsplash

Job hunting in this market? In this industry? 

It’s tiring, challenging and (let’s face it) work.

Here is my story of an interview that seemed to go on forever and (spoiler) ended up in no offer at all. 

Eight Interviews Later…

The interview process sounded normal. I had the intro call with a recruiter and got booked in for an in-site interview. I was excited and hoped I could show my talent.

The next step happened to be an all-day marathon. 

It contained several amazing hour-long interviews. Here are the highlights:

• A session where I had problems in a technology I am not familiar with

• A problem where I’d previously memorized the solution, told them, and was told to continue so they could evaluate ‘how you think’

Against all expectation I passed! I wondered, do I have the job? It turns out there is another stage, an interview with the CTO.

Billed as a chat for an hour or so, I thought I had a fair chance of bagging a job offer. I was tired but not (yet) defeated.

The CTO and the KitKat

My chat for an hour turned out to be a LeetCode problem morning. I had no idea that would be the content of the interview, and hadn’t prepared beforehand.

I did my best to tackle the problems. I’m not sure if it was my performance that made the interview run late but in lieu of lunch I remember the CTO offering a KitKat from their laptop bag.

I felt I’d done enough to get a job

The Ruined Vacation

I remember the interview was followed by a long weekend. I expected to get a result before, especially since I had a booking for a vacation. 

If this feels like foreshadowing from a recent interview, yes you’re right it kind of was.

After a ruined vacation I got a barely comprehensible rejection email. I didn’t have enough experience?

Reflections

This job interview, from my perspective, was completely absurd.

Why didn’t they tell me upfront about the interview composition?

Why not reject me in short order.

If I wasn’t experienced enough why interview me at all?

Lessons Learned

I used to think being more assertive in asking about the stages for interviews and what is expected would help solve these issues.

Unfortunately, I often need a job when interviewing, and have to accept interview opportunities that aren’t really compelling and give the company the benefit of the doubt.

Unfortunately, interviewers seldom give me the benefit of the doubt. Shame that.

Conclusion

Interviews suck, and it seems I’m not that good at them.

Hopefully things will get better, but probably not in this job market. Unfortunately.