• Sayer (unregistered) in reply to Reow
    Reow:
    @Grig Larson With your command (or lack thereof) of language, I wouldn't go calling myself an author any time soon. You can rest on the crutch of lay-offs as much as you like, but it doesn't change the fact you failed that interview dismally. It's good to be a critical thinker and point out the contextual issues to the interviewer, but you shouldn't focus on them (presuming you want the job). The point of a hypothetical is that you ignore the improbabilities of the situation and show your problem solving abilities. Had I been the interviewer, you wouldn't have got a call back either.

    This is a good plan. That way, you ensure that you only hire yes-men who give no thought to the big picture. This will no doubt come in handy when they've gleefully over-executed on a poorly thought out plan and can be sacrificed during the next "getting lean" layoff period.

  • Mike (unregistered) in reply to Raedwald

    Exactly. Why is it considered okay to waste a candidates time? Not everyone is out of work and looking for it if I'm taking time off work to go to your interview I shouldn't have to spend 3 hrs repeating things that are itemized on my resume.

    Say different parts of your experience are important to different groups managers or whatever. Get everyone in a room talk about the common things. Then split off individually and talk about what is specific to each group.

    I had a job interview where they had as a "nice to have" graph theory (was for a pharmaceutical protein modeling software company). It came up in the interview and I was honest: I've seen about 1 day worth of graph theory doing cyclomatic complexity calculations for a software engineering course, other than that no experience with it (but I do have a degree in physics and research experience in protein modeling).

    I get an onsite interview. I had to take a day off work and pay for a Greyhound both ways to get to the interview. We chat for a bit and then the coding test. 5 questions you have an hour. Every single question was graph theory related. I couldn't understand the questions to get started it wasn't that I couldn't code they were testing something I already told them I didn't know. Why your nice to have skill is required for the coding test you are using to screen people is beyond me.

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