7 ms·

That is just Amazon being Amazon. When they interviewed me the first time, the interviewer didn't show to work, so they asked another guy to interview me, he e

That is just Amazon being Amazon. When they interviewed me the first time, the interviewer didn't show to work, so they asked another guy to interview me, he ended interviewing me in a language he didn't knew, to a position using another language entirely, the whole thing was a farce. Some years later Amazon recruiters contacted me, asked me to go interview in person. Then during the interview in their offices, they literally forgot me for several hours in a random room of the building, the employees left at the end of shift, and left me alone in the floor with nobody in it, and I had no idea where the exit was. I really need a job and been applying to lots of companies, but I won't apply to Amazon again.

throw_aws_inter 4y ago
Oh yeah, I didn't mention everything, I had analogous experience. At the second interview video call the interviewer didn't show up, because the recruiter forgot to tell him about it. At the fifth video call with a different interviewer, he was an hour late because of the daylight savings change, again the recruiters' fault.
LegitShady 4y ago
this seems like a hazing ritual to make sure only those willing to be abused make it in.
- muzani 4y ago
  From being on various recruiting positions, I believe it's usually just incompetence or laziness. Hiring tends to happen when there's not enough people. Only the people who can do the job are qualified to assess whether someone can do the job. So you have people who are already at double the workload having to take time to design and handle interviews and such. And by the time you get everyone to sign off on hiring this guy at the extravagant tech salary, economic downturn forces you to fire a bunch of people. In a recession, the least useful people are probably HR.
  - nopenopenopeno 4y ago
    >In a recession, the least useful people are probably HR. I think you mean recruiters, not HR. Big difference.
    - moomin 4y ago
      Indeed. HR handles layoffs. Well, unless you like lawsuits.
mapmeld 4y ago
I'll add to the Amazon interview complaints (early 2021 so remote). The recruiter prepped me ahead of time that I would have only 4 interviewers, and the next day they would be sending me an approval or some feedback. Having done interviews before I knew this was nonsense, and sure enough 2 or 3 days after my five calls, he called back genuinely surprised that there was no feedback. The interview itself was genuinely interesting but complicated by this team not having hired a frontend eng before.
_dhruva 4y ago
Over a video call, the interviewer asked a coding question and immediately put on headphones and I am sure was listening to music. There was no dialogue and I had to use visual cues to get his attention. I coded using C++ and pass by reference. He had never seen it in his life. He refused to believe modification on a reference would modify the value in the calling function! I hoping he would be willing to discuss or run the code, this was a total let down. Note: I have 2+ decades of coding experience
- woadwarrior01 4y ago
  Coding in C++ could be a double edged sword whilst interviewing. It's hard for some interviewers to admit that they don't know C++ and they might end up surreptitiously misgrading your work. It's best to ask the interviewer's opinion on C++ before chosing it. IMO, the safest bets would be to stick to Java or Python (even Python's a fairly hairy language these days). I once shadowed an interview once, where this happened. I felt bad for the candidate, because I wasn't allowed to speak whilst shadowing the interview, and neither did I have to submit feedback; and the candidate clearly was coding well. Although, I did reach out to the recruiter about this. And I don't know what happened after that.
- westmeal 4y ago
  You've got to be kidding... that's literally what references are for. Insane.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 4y ago
    We don't teach pass by reference these days. Anyone you find in the real world under ~30 years old may not even be aware that you can pass a reference and modify it directly without having to make a method return a value. It's super cool to have someone explain to you side effects yet you show them a method with a null return and run it for them showing that the value has changed and they are mesmerized.
    - icedchai 4y ago
      I don't believe this. Almost all mainstream languages use pass-by-reference by default. Java, python, javascript all pass objects by reference.
zulrah 4y ago
My Amazon interview was cancelled as interviewer got ill. It was never rescheduled

throw_aws_inter 4y ago

Oh yeah, I didn't mention everything, I had analogous experience. At the second interview video call the interviewer didn't show up, because the recruiter forgot to tell him about it. At the fifth video call with a different interviewer, he was an hour late because of the daylight savings change, again the recruiters' fault.

LegitShady 4y ago

this seems like a hazing ritual to make sure only those willing to be abused make it in.

muzani 4y ago
From being on various recruiting positions, I believe it's usually just incompetence or laziness. Hiring tends to happen when there's not enough people. Only the people who can do the job are qualified to assess whether someone can do the job. So you have people who are already at double the workload having to take time to design and handle interviews and such. And by the time you get everyone to sign off on hiring this guy at the extravagant tech salary, economic downturn forces you to fire a bunch of people. In a recession, the least useful people are probably HR.
- nopenopenopeno 4y ago
  >In a recession, the least useful people are probably HR. I think you mean recruiters, not HR. Big difference.
  - moomin 4y ago
    Indeed. HR handles layoffs. Well, unless you like lawsuits.

mapmeld 4y ago

I'll add to the Amazon interview complaints (early 2021 so remote). The recruiter prepped me ahead of time that I would have only 4 interviewers, and the next day they would be sending me an approval or some feedback. Having done interviews before I knew this was nonsense, and sure enough 2 or 3 days after my five calls, he called back genuinely surprised that there was no feedback. The interview itself was genuinely interesting but complicated by this team not having hired a frontend eng before.

_dhruva 4y ago

Over a video call, the interviewer asked a coding question and immediately put on headphones and I am sure was listening to music. There was no dialogue and I had to use visual cues to get his attention. I coded using C++ and pass by reference. He had never seen it in his life. He refused to believe modification on a reference would modify the value in the calling function! I hoping he would be willing to discuss or run the code, this was a total let down. Note: I have 2+ decades of coding experience

woadwarrior01 4y ago
Coding in C++ could be a double edged sword whilst interviewing. It's hard for some interviewers to admit that they don't know C++ and they might end up surreptitiously misgrading your work. It's best to ask the interviewer's opinion on C++ before chosing it. IMO, the safest bets would be to stick to Java or Python (even Python's a fairly hairy language these days). I once shadowed an interview once, where this happened. I felt bad for the candidate, because I wasn't allowed to speak whilst shadowing the interview, and neither did I have to submit feedback; and the candidate clearly was coding well. Although, I did reach out to the recruiter about this. And I don't know what happened after that.
westmeal 4y ago
You've got to be kidding... that's literally what references are for. Insane.
- WrtCdEvrydy 4y ago
  We don't teach pass by reference these days. Anyone you find in the real world under ~30 years old may not even be aware that you can pass a reference and modify it directly without having to make a method return a value. It's super cool to have someone explain to you side effects yet you show them a method with a null return and run it for them showing that the value has changed and they are mesmerized.
  - icedchai 4y ago
    I don't believe this. Almost all mainstream languages use pass-by-reference by default. Java, python, javascript all pass objects by reference.

zulrah 4y ago

My Amazon interview was cancelled as interviewer got ill. It was never rescheduled