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I have had my share of bad interview questions too. The worst part is when the interviewer starts working on their laptop, like they are so bored of this questi

I have had my share of bad interview questions too. The worst part is when the interviewer starts working on their laptop, like they are so bored of this question they can't think about it any longer. Yet it is now a part of my life for 45 minutes. At the end of every trivia question I'm tempted to ask: so is this typical of what I will be doing here? Will I be implementing rand(7) given rand(5) once a week? I've also had a bad experience with code challenges. These are given before the first phone interview. I'm happy to do a challenge taking < 1 hour. I once did a challenge that took me 3 hours. Got rejected because they didn't like my visual design (I was interviewing for a backend position). I've realized that code challenges require no investment on the company's part, so I don't want to do one that requires significant investment on my part.

skybrian 12y ago
Perhaps they were taking notes about the interview on their laptop?
- egonschiele 12y ago
  I've had people do that too, but that's noticeably different because they pay attention to you. It's obvious when people are working because you can see them context switch back to you.
alxndr 12y ago
> "At the end of every trivia question I'm tempted to ask: so is this typical of what I will be doing here? Will I be implementing rand(7) given rand(5) once a week?" That sounds like a great question to ask!
- stingraycharles 12y ago
  Because being passive-agressive is a great way to get the job?
  - ryandrake 12y ago
    If someone is asking you to implement rand(7) given rand(5) as part of their way to qualify your ability to do a job, you probably no longer want the job.
blackRust 12y ago
> I've realized that code challenges require no investment on the company's part, so I don't want to do one that requires significant investment on my part. Same. I'm happy to do one after we've talked about the role and done the "warm up" phase. Just last week I got given a 150m challenge on an online platform with very little information about the company, role or code challenge. It's all automated, which lowers costs for the company, but I think they're loosing out on candidates with this strategy. A little fine tuning and they can have low costs but with a better success rate. I told them it was rude and I expected to know something about what I'm diving into before setting myself up for 150m.

skybrian 12y ago

Perhaps they were taking notes about the interview on their laptop?

egonschiele 12y ago
I've had people do that too, but that's noticeably different because they pay attention to you. It's obvious when people are working because you can see them context switch back to you.

alxndr 12y ago

> "At the end of every trivia question I'm tempted to ask: so is this typical of what I will be doing here? Will I be implementing rand(7) given rand(5) once a week?" That sounds like a great question to ask!

stingraycharles 12y ago
Because being passive-agressive is a great way to get the job?
- ryandrake 12y ago
  If someone is asking you to implement rand(7) given rand(5) as part of their way to qualify your ability to do a job, you probably no longer want the job.

blackRust 12y ago

> I've realized that code challenges require no investment on the company's part, so I don't want to do one that requires significant investment on my part. Same. I'm happy to do one after we've talked about the role and done the "warm up" phase. Just last week I got given a 150m challenge on an online platform with very little information about the company, role or code challenge. It's all automated, which lowers costs for the company, but I think they're loosing out on candidates with this strategy. A little fine tuning and they can have low costs but with a better success rate. I told them it was rude and I expected to know something about what I'm diving into before setting myself up for 150m.