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Comment by hef19898 | Hacker News Reader

hef19898

I'm always drawn between leaving on the spot or staying and dropping out of the process later. In practice, I prefer to stay. Waste their time, try to do as well as you can, practice interviewing, gain experience. And then professionally and politely drop out of the interview process. Just because the interviewers are unprofessional and unpolite doesn't mean you have to be.

All that assumes that the interviewers' behavior was "just" rude, if the cross line like sexism, racism and similar thing the solution is standing up and leaving. Their is only so much you can learn from abusive people.

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Asking “Hey, where did bob just go?” is not rude. Leaving an interview where you have been purposefully insulted and treated poorly is also not rude right? Why burn your time when you know you won’t accept any offers. Just seems like there are better ways to spend time.

Agreed although I’ve had interviews that taught me quite a bit about the company and the interviewer. This then became useful career information for industry practices and useful skills to develop.

Playing dumb, if you can with a straight face, isn't rude in response to rudeness, IMO. And it can be quite effective. It's one thing to insult someone; it's quite another to have to explain how and why you were insulting them. "Huh? Whaddaya mean? I'm not sure I get it..." works well on overly offensive jokes too. Usually. Some real jerks will double down though and happily explain in excruciating detail.

If they play dumb you can say, "this seems like a good time to ask, what is the company culture like when people have technical disagreements?"

That is a great questions for candidates to ask and I wished more of them did. Another one I like is "How does your organization change course when they realize they are on the wrong one?".

Leaving doesn't have to be rude. If there's no reason to work on your interview skills, you can simply say "I appreciate your time, but I don't think I'm a good fit for _company name here_." You don't have to give any further reason. You are the boss of your time and effort, so don't waste it if you don't have to.

>"I appreciate your time, but I don't think I'm a good fit for _company name here_."

I would also suggest this; it signals to the other interviewers that they just lost a potential candidate because of John Doe's behavior. They might take action, but they need to understand the consequence of having that guy on the team, or at least in the interview room.

Would "I don't think your company is a good fit for me" be better wording (to show it's not your skills but their culture), or would that be too aggressive?

Too narcissistic.

And perfectly fitting in such a situation. Being polite and professiobal avout breaking an interview of doesn't mean you cannot be "arrogant" doing it.

Not at all. It is what it is.

Invert that phrase. "__company__ isn't a good fit for me". Be clear that you are leaving on your terms.

The interviewer may still tell people that you gave up halfway through, but if anyone else is listening or the interviewer is accidentally honest, it is more likely to trigger change by emphasizing that the company is losing you rather than you are losing the company.

I think that's a valid approach, too. It might just depend on the interviewee which is better. The inverted phrase is a bit more direct and dominant (which I don't think is bad), so I don't think it fits everyone's personality. That said, my recommendation is simply to be polite and leave, and do it on your own terms.

+100

Anytime I have brought colleagues in to interview a candidate, during the introduction, I'll note that "Bob from devops will be joining us, but he may get called away" based on the circumstances however I would not appreciate a coworker stepping out without an explanation for the candidate as that would reflect horribly on the organization in my opinion.

We'd also expect Bob to say something like "Oh crap excuse me, sorry, the server's on fire" as he leaves.

Absolutely!

"Waste their time"

You would waste your own time, too, with this approach.

Sure, but if there are n interviewers, I get to waste n minutes of the company's time for each minute of my own wasted. For some panel interviews I've been in, this can be a significant multiplier that makes it worth it even if spite didn't already.

Often when interviewing for a job the interviewee has the time...

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