6 ms·

I thought that was needlessly vindictive. If you don't like the guy that much, just stop the interview.

tptacek 14y ago
Vindictive would be halting the interview immediately because the candidate made the (egregious) mistake. She's playing this part of the story for humor, but one imagines that a non-brain-damaged candidate could immediately correct for that boneheaded move. "Wow. I'm so embarrassed. I must sound like a complete tool. It's been a rough couple weeks dealing with HR teams. I'm very sorry, can we start over?" And, what she's saying is, predictably enough, most nerd candidates don't do this.
- xentronium 14y ago
  I don't know. In a world of sucky interviews, wasting a candidate's time on purpose, because they mistook you with an HR (statistically, that's a much more probable occurrence) is as unethical as it gets short of plain lying in the interview result sheet. I can only hope that her not-that-productive-in-interviewing colleagues don't do such shit.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    If she'd just stopped the interview, some other HN commenter would be writing an angry post about how that was unfair, too.
    - xentronium 14y ago
      Not being able to just stop the interview must be a US thing. I'd take blunt response over sadistic 'derpy' torture any time.
      - btilly 14y ago
        There are two reasons for not just stopping the interview. One is the corporate image that the company tries to project. The other is that upset interviewees in the US occasionally develop theories about why they might have been discriminated against. And their mis-memories about what was said can figure into that. No matter how far off base, the lawsuits are expensive, and the truth does not always win you the case. Therefore every competent HR person and anyone with experience in this part of the law will tell you that you never give anything away about why someone failed the interview.
    - jerrya 14y ago
      "Oh, this is (candidate), but let me save us some time. I thought this was going to be a technical interview." That guy bombed the interview right then and there. I didn't tell him that, though. I let him dig the deepest hole he could imagine by doing my best ditzy/derpy voice and just saying things like "they want me to ask about the load... average...?". He'd make up some garbage, and I'd log all of it. This way I could bury him both for being a sexist bastard and for being a lying piece of trash at the same time. He has already sunk the interview in her eyes, but she doesn't want to tell her employer that this guy bombed due to his interactions in the first 30 seconds with her. Moreover, he is a sexist bastard. He then tells her something she disagrees technically about load average, and this makes him a lying piece of trash. Regardless, he has bombed and sunk the interview, and her only duty now is to spend another 44:30 seconds to bury him. Of course, she is playing this for humor, so I am out of line for thinking Rachel sounds like a jackass who has done a disservice to the candidate as well as a disservice to her employer.
      - vacri 14y ago
        So the sexist guy has an incorrect opinion on women in tech. He encounters one, who decides to play along with his stereotype rather than just be who she is. While it's not her responsibility to teach him not to be sexist, it's also specifically avoiding allowing him to see a positive role model. And all out of a vindictive power play. If he has 'already lost the interview', then there is no point in keeping up with the charade - you've already made your evaluation and now you're just being a cat playing with a mouse. And at the end of the interview, we are left with a sexist man who has had his preconceived notions confirmed by encountering a female tech. That's something of an own-goal.
        chris_wot 14y ago
        Wow, so Rachel encounters a sexist jerk, and then asks him a number of questions to let him hang himself, and it is Rachel who is the problem? Given they have very few women interviewers, and the guy has to work in a team, any woman who has the unfortunate luck to work in the jerk's team is going to have their life made difficult. Rachel seems to have done a service to the company by flunking him, IMHO.
  - arthurdenture 14y ago
    > statistically, that's a much more probable occurrence Irrelevant even if it's true. If you're going to make that sort of assumption about people, knowing nothing more than their gender, I don't want to hire you.
    - xentronium 14y ago
      Again, my point is not that the candidate doesn't pass, but that everyone's time is wasted. Just end the interview. I don't know why it should become a torture instead. Knowing why similar episodes happen in first place also helps. Some people are socially awkward. Some people are tired of and irritated by numerous phone screens without followups. Some people come from another culture. Some people are genuine assholes, though, no doubt about that. Still, I am surprised that such a tenured interviewer doesn't know that much about interviewees.
  - btilly 14y ago
    I know the process involved here. The reason why he knew to say that this was supposed to be the technical interview is that he was told he would be getting a technical interview. Therefore, statistically, he should expect that he's getting a technical interview no matter who he hears. Secondly, even if you don't like your interviewer, if you're asked technical questions in a phone interview, it is just common sense to give the best answers you can. If you're competent, before long you'll realize that the person at the other end actually does understand what they are talking about. In this case I fully agree with her judgement and decision. The fact that the interviewee failed to realize that he was getting a technical interview when told he would get one says that he was incompetent. The fact that he was then unable to answer the technical questions he was asked them says that she discovered ample cause to fail him. (No surprise - most interviewees will fail the interview process.)
- nostrademons 14y ago
  He never got any feedback that he'd made a mistake. He thought he was talking to a recruiter, and she played that role, as if she wasn't an engineer at all. A "no hire" is probably appropriate in that case, though, as anyone who makes that many assumptions without verifying that they're correct probably would make a terrible engineer anyway.
  - georgemcbay 14y ago
    He's presumably a grown man at this point, not a preteen. He shouldn't need that sort of feedback. If he was confused as to what her role with the company was (for any reason) he should have just asked.
- furyofantares 14y ago
  It's possible it was an innocent mistake, and she didn't allow that mistake to surface. Maybe he mistook her for someone he'd already spoken with. Maybe the recruiter he talked to was named Rachel and/or had a similar voice, or even a recruiter at a different company, and he got confused. Confusions like that would have easily surfaced if she had asked "What made you to believe this isn't the technical interview?", but instead she played the part of a less technical recruiter trying to give a technical interview.
  - MBCook 14y ago
    As the candidate, that's a curveball you should be able to handle and you should still act professionally. If I went to interview with some small company and the technical interviewer didn't seem to know what they were doing, that would certainly be a mark against the company in my book. If they extended an offer, I might decide not to take the job. But things can happen. What if the real technical interviewer had a sudden crisis come up and someone else without much experience was substituting in? If you do a good job they may be impressed with your communication skills on technical issues when talking to less technical employees. Maybe you'd get a further interview with the more technical person since you did a good job in that accidental circumstance. There are quite a few people here saying she was unprofessional for handling things that way, that she should have cut the interview short. If he thought company was acting unprofessionally, he could have just cut the interview short, saying he didn't think it would be a fit. For all we know, as soon as the interview started he made up his mind and stopped trying.

Vindictive would be halting the interview immediately because the candidate made the (egregious) mistake. She's playing this part of the story for humor, but one imagines that a non-brain-damaged candidate could immediately correct for that boneheaded move. "Wow. I'm so embarrassed. I must sound like a complete tool. It's been a rough couple weeks dealing with HR teams. I'm very sorry, can we start over?" And, what she's saying is, predictably enough, most nerd candidates don't do this.

xentronium 14y ago
I don't know. In a world of sucky interviews, wasting a candidate's time on purpose, because they mistook you with an HR (statistically, that's a much more probable occurrence) is as unethical as it gets short of plain lying in the interview result sheet. I can only hope that her not-that-productive-in-interviewing colleagues don't do such shit.
- tptacek 14y ago
  If she'd just stopped the interview, some other HN commenter would be writing an angry post about how that was unfair, too.
  - xentronium 14y ago
    Not being able to just stop the interview must be a US thing. I'd take blunt response over sadistic 'derpy' torture any time.
    - btilly 14y ago
      There are two reasons for not just stopping the interview. One is the corporate image that the company tries to project. The other is that upset interviewees in the US occasionally develop theories about why they might have been discriminated against. And their mis-memories about what was said can figure into that. No matter how far off base, the lawsuits are expensive, and the truth does not always win you the case. Therefore every competent HR person and anyone with experience in this part of the law will tell you that you never give anything away about why someone failed the interview.
  - jerrya 14y ago
    "Oh, this is (candidate), but let me save us some time. I thought this was going to be a technical interview." That guy bombed the interview right then and there. I didn't tell him that, though. I let him dig the deepest hole he could imagine by doing my best ditzy/derpy voice and just saying things like "they want me to ask about the load... average...?". He'd make up some garbage, and I'd log all of it. This way I could bury him both for being a sexist bastard and for being a lying piece of trash at the same time. He has already sunk the interview in her eyes, but she doesn't want to tell her employer that this guy bombed due to his interactions in the first 30 seconds with her. Moreover, he is a sexist bastard. He then tells her something she disagrees technically about load average, and this makes him a lying piece of trash. Regardless, he has bombed and sunk the interview, and her only duty now is to spend another 44:30 seconds to bury him. Of course, she is playing this for humor, so I am out of line for thinking Rachel sounds like a jackass who has done a disservice to the candidate as well as a disservice to her employer.
    - vacri 14y ago
      So the sexist guy has an incorrect opinion on women in tech. He encounters one, who decides to play along with his stereotype rather than just be who she is. While it's not her responsibility to teach him not to be sexist, it's also specifically avoiding allowing him to see a positive role model. And all out of a vindictive power play. If he has 'already lost the interview', then there is no point in keeping up with the charade - you've already made your evaluation and now you're just being a cat playing with a mouse. And at the end of the interview, we are left with a sexist man who has had his preconceived notions confirmed by encountering a female tech. That's something of an own-goal.
      - chris_wot 14y ago
        Wow, so Rachel encounters a sexist jerk, and then asks him a number of questions to let him hang himself, and it is Rachel who is the problem? Given they have very few women interviewers, and the guy has to work in a team, any woman who has the unfortunate luck to work in the jerk's team is going to have their life made difficult. Rachel seems to have done a service to the company by flunking him, IMHO.
- arthurdenture 14y ago
  > statistically, that's a much more probable occurrence Irrelevant even if it's true. If you're going to make that sort of assumption about people, knowing nothing more than their gender, I don't want to hire you.
  - xentronium 14y ago
    Again, my point is not that the candidate doesn't pass, but that everyone's time is wasted. Just end the interview. I don't know why it should become a torture instead. Knowing why similar episodes happen in first place also helps. Some people are socially awkward. Some people are tired of and irritated by numerous phone screens without followups. Some people come from another culture. Some people are genuine assholes, though, no doubt about that. Still, I am surprised that such a tenured interviewer doesn't know that much about interviewees.
- btilly 14y ago
  I know the process involved here. The reason why he knew to say that this was supposed to be the technical interview is that he was told he would be getting a technical interview. Therefore, statistically, he should expect that he's getting a technical interview no matter who he hears. Secondly, even if you don't like your interviewer, if you're asked technical questions in a phone interview, it is just common sense to give the best answers you can. If you're competent, before long you'll realize that the person at the other end actually does understand what they are talking about. In this case I fully agree with her judgement and decision. The fact that the interviewee failed to realize that he was getting a technical interview when told he would get one says that he was incompetent. The fact that he was then unable to answer the technical questions he was asked them says that she discovered ample cause to fail him. (No surprise - most interviewees will fail the interview process.)
nostrademons 14y ago
He never got any feedback that he'd made a mistake. He thought he was talking to a recruiter, and she played that role, as if she wasn't an engineer at all. A "no hire" is probably appropriate in that case, though, as anyone who makes that many assumptions without verifying that they're correct probably would make a terrible engineer anyway.
- georgemcbay 14y ago
  He's presumably a grown man at this point, not a preteen. He shouldn't need that sort of feedback. If he was confused as to what her role with the company was (for any reason) he should have just asked.
furyofantares 14y ago
It's possible it was an innocent mistake, and she didn't allow that mistake to surface. Maybe he mistook her for someone he'd already spoken with. Maybe the recruiter he talked to was named Rachel and/or had a similar voice, or even a recruiter at a different company, and he got confused. Confusions like that would have easily surfaced if she had asked "What made you to believe this isn't the technical interview?", but instead she played the part of a less technical recruiter trying to give a technical interview.
- MBCook 14y ago
  As the candidate, that's a curveball you should be able to handle and you should still act professionally. If I went to interview with some small company and the technical interviewer didn't seem to know what they were doing, that would certainly be a mark against the company in my book. If they extended an offer, I might decide not to take the job. But things can happen. What if the real technical interviewer had a sudden crisis come up and someone else without much experience was substituting in? If you do a good job they may be impressed with your communication skills on technical issues when talking to less technical employees. Maybe you'd get a further interview with the more technical person since you did a good job in that accidental circumstance. There are quite a few people here saying she was unprofessional for handling things that way, that she should have cut the interview short. If he thought company was acting unprofessionally, he could have just cut the interview short, saying he didn't think it would be a fit. For all we know, as soon as the interview started he made up his mind and stopped trying.