Top Ways to Blow a Job Interview
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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.)
And cellphones are rude, but it is not rude if you can not or forgot to turn yours off and it rings. It is not rude to apologize and briefly take the call if only to explain why you can't talk on the phone now. It is not even rude to strongly apologize further if the call turns out to be important and you have to take <5 minutes to deal with it. This applies equally to both sides.
> 4. Wait a week to send a thank you note. Or don't send one at all.
got me thinking. Is it an American thing? What are you thanking them for anyway?
One thing I have done, though, when interviewing for a job, is to not ask all my ?'s when the interview enters the "what do you have to ask about us?" phase. I try to keep one in reserve and send that to someone in my interview loop after the fact. I feel that it shows continued interest in the position and I have never gotten a negative reaction from anyone for asking a follow-up ?.
The only situation I can imagine sending one is if a couple of weeks go by and you still haven't had any response after the interview (which usually isn't a good sign anyway.)
If they say, "Thanks for your time. I look forward to hearing more about the position-perhaps when you arrive tomorrow at 8:15 in the parking lot? I'll have your favorite latte in hand" then I would agree that it's stalkerly :)
Priorities, priorities... :)
1. Make me wait in the waiting room past our appointment time. My time is as valuable as yours.
2. Make me meet with Human Resources first. My time is as valuable as yours.
3. Make me fill out forms. This can be done in advance. There's this thing call "the internet".
4. Don't shake my hand. (I have no idea why this happens, but it does.)
5. Begin the conversation with anything other than, "Hello," or "Nice to meet you." Again, why would the first words of any interview be, "How would you handle mass emails?"
6. Don't give me your business card. As a job applicant, I'm just as important as any vendor or business associate. This is a good chance to demonstate it.
7. Criticize my job history. Here is the reason I've had 9 jobs in the past 5 years: Because there were poorly run businesses, assholes, and mismatches. The reason I'm here is to try to fix all that. Move along.
8. Expect me to have 10 years experience in every possible technology your entire enterprise uses. I can learn what I need. Promise.
9. Ask me how many gas stations are in the United States, how many ping pong balls fit in a bus, or why manhole covers are round. Frankly, I don't give a shit. There, now you have the results for both your I.Q. test and your personality test.
10. Don't follow up. I know that I'm probably not the only person your interviewing and this may take some time. Extend me the same courtesy you would the window washers. Don't make me email you every week.
As a job applicant, you don't always know how bad things are or will be until after you start working there. Sometimes, the job starts out OK, but things get progressively worse over time. Am I supposed to voluntarily endure a crappy situation that has no end in sight, so that my next employer doesn't think I'll leave too fast? You should be able to explain that kind of thing in an interview without it being considered a mark against you.
As for #9, too many places ask these types of questions when the job you're applying for amounts to cranking out CRUD web apps. I think it's just cargo-cult behavior from old Microsoft interview techniques. If the job will require the unorthodox, creative thinking the employer is trying to test for by that question, a better way to do that would be to see if I have any actual projects, apps, open-source code that I actually wrote that demonstrates this ability.
I had a recent interview at Apple, and was heavily criticized for my research background. They kept re-terating "we don't do research here", as if I was then supposed to do something about it.