^You’d be surprised by how many people are willing to say that “their talents weren’t being utilized/appreciated”, that they wanted more opportunity for “growth”, or that the prior job had cliques that he/she was not a part of. If the job applicant articulated this rationally with supporting facts (and was not whining), that was a plus in my book. Also, remember that this discussion is interactive, so you learn something as an interviewer when you put someone possibly in an uncomfortable position which will happen on the job. In fact if I felt someone was being evasive or gave a stock vague answer, that would be a minus.
Of course you always look for patterns of job changes and tenure at past jobs. A person who changed jobs multiple times in law always raised a red flag with me, less so in banking because of the nature of the industry.
Final-stage interviews at tech companies for a technical role can be quite demanding, at least in my recent experience. Over at [insert popular search engine company], the recruiter spent probably 2 hours coaching me for one round of interviews. We actually had a 1 hour coaching session where he talked me through the types of questions to expect, then a week later after I had done many hours of research and prep we had another 1 hour coaching session similar to a mock interview to see how prepared I was for the actual interviews.
And that was just the second round. For the final round I had to develop a custom demo using their products along with a presentation as if I were one of their technical sales reps presenting to a customer. They give you one week to prepare, which could easily be 7 days, 16 hours a day in prep.
For my current company, in the final round I also had to develop a demo and presentation using the company’s products and whatever information I could glean publicly. In the actual presentation, the interviewers continually hammered me with pretty tough questions.
But the good thing is that if you make it through all of that, you know that everyone you’re working with also made it through all of that. But yeah, if I could answer a few puzzle questions instead of spending 80+ hours preparing a demo of products I don’t know, I’d take that option in a heartbeat.
Although my daughter is applying at tech companies, these are not tech positions. She didn’t have any tech skill assessments for any of the interviews she had when she was graduating college. Now with 3 + years under her belt, she is being asked to do them.
When I was finishing up my MBA and interviewing for Wall Street positions way back in the day, I was asked during an interview, “Why are manhole covers round?” I was prepared for that one, so no worries.
However, I was also asked by the Head of Derivatives at CSFB (a Bankers Trust derivatives pedigree that populated every investment bank at that time), “What is your favorite game?”
I quickly replied, “Chess”.
He was a Grand Master Chess player and was very offended. “A ‘game’ is a game of chance. There is no luck in chess. Chess is a sport not a game.”
Touche’. Needless to say my interview went from great and a nice job, to over in a heartbeat. I wanted to bang my head on the table. Oh well.
As a person who runs a lot of chess tournaments, there definitely is a wee bit of luck involved, just like any other sport. Technicality failures such as touch move, moving a piece before notating, etc can lead to losing or winning that has nothing to do with skill. Sort of like being a victim or beneficiary of a balk in baseball.
Weird definition. Not every game is a game of chance. For instance I love room escape games, which are logic puzzle based. A poorly designed room escape game might have some element of chance but a well designed one doesn’t.
As to questions like the manhole cover one, I would find those useless in that they’re so common that most people who can answer correctly have encountered them before, much like the wolf-chicken-grain transportation question.
A little off topic and a bit of a vent here. Two of the companies my daughter interviewed with required her to do “homework” as part of the process. She created a PowerPoint for one and took a skills test for another. Now, they are both ghosting her (over 10 days without an email response from either.) If she “failed” these tests, they should just email her and say they are no longer interested in her for these positions. I feel like they are dragging her along instead. Seems rude to make her jump through hoops and then leave her hanging.
A possible reason is that they made an offer to another applicant and are waiting for a response from the other applicant. Only if the offered applicant declines the offer will they continue the process with applicants whom they are “keeping on hold”. If this is the true reason, it can be awkward to tell those applicants whom they are “keeping on hold”.
But employers can do that because most desirable jobs are “reaches”, so most applicants that they are “keeping on hold” will still be there (rather than being hired by other employers) after being “ghosted” for weeks.
^Pretty sure that is a common situation. Daughter was fortunately on the other end. She had a 2 day call back where she was interviewed by multiple labs within the same organization. Two labs decided to pursue her. Both gave her a week/10 days to make a decision because they had other candidates on hold and told her so. From an employer standpoint, makes a lot of sense to have multiple “finalists” in the mix to truncate the time to fill a position and to compare multiple candidates vs pursuing candidates one at a time . What is rude is to not tell the candidate where they stand on a timely basis. I guess they must feel that it would be worse to let someone know that they are not the “first choice” than dangle them, but at some point past a week, most candidates know there are issues.
My daughter had a similar experience-multiple interviews with good feedback but no answer. When a week after the final interview she asked when they might be making their decision they turned it around and asked when she needed to know. She told them ASAP because she was looking at other opportunities. After a bit more back and forth during which they asked her not to accept any other offers she finally set an artificial deadline almost 3 weeks after her interviews ended. The deadline passed without a work from the company. I suspect she was their 2nd choice and they were keeping her in reserve. Luckily her next opportunity resolved itself much quicker. Within a week of submitting her resume she was hired, and a week late she was trained and on the payroll.
Brother does admission interviews for Harvard. Their MO is to ask the applicant as many questions as necessary to see how they deal with not knowing any answer or using poor logic. They just have to get to one. Could take one question, could take 50. Has told me many times it’s far more interesting interviewing the kids who don’t know (likely because they haven’t been exposed to certain things) and are humble than the ones who require 10+ questions to observe how they deal with the situation. Honest, open minded, curious, vs. know it all who can’t believe they didn’t know something.
Much more about how they deal with things than knowledge.
^ Very interesting. Is that a Harvard recommended thing for their interviewers or is it something your brother does. I might have to “torture” my next Yale interviewee with something like that.
In this case, she hasn’t had an on-site interview at these companies or spoken with the hiring manager. She is stuck after taking their “test” and only speaking with the HR person. Which makes me wonder why they are keeping her dangling. In both cases she was passed on to HR as an employee reference by a friend. My first thought was that there weren’t any jobs that they felt were right for her (correct level and pay), but then just say hey nothing now we will keep you in mind if something opens up. If she bombed the “test”, again get back and say nope you aren’t a good fit for our company. This limbo stinks, especially since she has friends at these companies who seem happy there, which makes them very appealing to her.
Sounds pretty obnoxious to me. So, actually knowing the answers and using logic is perceived as “know it all who can’t believe they didn’t know something”?
Seems likely that they have at least one other applicant further along in the process (i.e. completed on-site interviews) whom they made an offer to. Only if that other applicant(s) declines the offer will they move forward in the process for applicants like your daughter who are in the earlier stages of the process.
@BKSquared I believe it’s an H thing but not sure. @ucbalumnus it’s not obnoxious in that no one is penalized for knowing more. It’s simply a technique to getting to a point in the interview where the applicant has to deal with the unknown. That’s what they’re looking for. All these kids are super bright. It’s more about how they deal with things, present themselves, handle stress, etc. B’s experience has simply been the one’s requiring fewer questions to getting to that point appear to be more genuine, humble, and curious. He’s been doing that for over 15 yrs.
It’s not a knowledge test, but rather a way to view EQ.