5 ms·

I once, 30 minutes into what was supposed to be a 1 or 2 hour phone interview, had an engineer at Google cut me off in the middle of their standard "write code

• dr_kiszonka 5y ago
  I had a Google research scientist telling me during an interview that they don't like their job and don't recommend it. At a different occasion, Google's VP showed up 15 minutes late, asked one question, and stopped paying attention for the rest of the interview too busy with their laptop. I understand that these are probably outliers but I will not be reapplying soon.
  • devin 5y ago
    Shoulda called them out.
    • speedgoose 5y ago
      During an interview?
      • calt 5y ago
        Yes. If you're ever talking to someone one on one and they're not paying attention find a way to address it.
        • willhinsa 5y ago
          Absolutely. It can be quite painful in the short term, but the long term benefits (both for you and that particular relationship) can be huge, especially if you're naturally averse to confrontation.
        • Rapzid 5y ago
          It wasn't an interview but when I was first starting my engineering career I was in a little three-way meeting with my manager and the department director in a tiny break-out room presenting some automation I'd developed to save time provisioning DC infrastructure. The director was not paying attention at all and was pecking at their iPad. iPads had just come out and every VP/director was carrying them around and chicken-pecking them during meetings. I stopped presenting and said I would wait until they weren't busy anymore ;D Was a bit irritated as they were the entire reason we were in that room.. Luckily I had quite a bit more tenure than that director haha(and a lot of political cover).
      • dehrmann 5y ago
        Remember that interviews are two-way.
      • pmiller2 5y ago
        If they’re already not paying attention, what’s left to lose?
  • kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
    I interviewed for a company that was (maybe still is?) the leader in industrial cameras. I was being vetted for a EE role by a bunch of non-EEs until I got to the one poor woman who was the only EE left in the company after they had gutted their in house development and switched to using fancy enclosures around SZ commodity cameras. I was asking probing questions and had her on the verge of tears during the interview. Glad I never got a call back from them.
    • pm90 5y ago
      Oh man, I feel bad for that poor woman. If she didn’t leave there must be other reasons why she’s trapped in such a terrible environment. The psychological tax of seeing your team dissolve and not be replaced seems brutal.
    • NAG3LT 5y ago
      Is that the same company that produces a lot of thermal cameras?
• JAlexoid 5y ago
  Well... There are cases when you just need to cut the interview off. Google is purely consensus company, where one "outlier" can literally block staffing of a whole department. So if that one person was against you - you had 0 chance.
• bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  I think it depends somewhat on what the cursing at me really means - if the recruiter said something like: "Screw you, you little shit, I can't believe I wasted my time with your worthless ass!" and hung up that would be one thing, if they said "oh damn it" and hung up that would be another, both still rude but quite different. I'm assuming of course it was probably something like the second but the phrasing makes it sound like the first.
• machello13 5y ago
  I think cutting off an interview is fine if it's clear that it's not going to work out. It saves everyone's time. Maybe he could have been less rude about it.
• LorenPechtel 5y ago
  They were probably going through the motions to hire an H1-B.