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No matter how badly I was doing in the interview I would walk out when I saw the engineer pull out his phone and start checking messages. How embarrassing for the company to have someone that disrespectful conducting interviews. An interview should be a conversation between potential peers and him pulling his phone out is just as rude as if you had pulled out yours because you were bored of hearing about the company.

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I even do this IRL. If I come to visit you or you come to visit me then that takes precedence over social media. If that's not the case I'll be more than happy to walk.

It's rude beyond insult to do this during a job interview, whoever decided that was ok to do is basically sending you a very large warning message that even hiring is a job that does not require full attention.

Counter opinion: I have done this in the past to signal the candidate that I am not watching over his shoulder, just to help the person relax as he figures things out. I feel glad now that I have done this after explicitly indicating this to the respective candidates.

Do you signal that in a verbal way as well or do you simply look away and start working on your phone?

Verbal way.

I think that's a key difference then.

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