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Admin
For Hot, Hot, Hot! I was hoping the last paragraph would be about a smoking hot babe interviewing him. The kind that make you lose all sense of rationality. In the end you dumbly say "yes" without considering the consequences - just so you get the chance to see her again. Yes, been there.
Admin
"The Last Interview", IMO, is either heavily embellished or someone's fantasy.
Admin
You must be new here.
Welcome! :-)
Admin
Admin
I'm not new here, what the hell does that mean? All the stories are embellished fantasies?
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Admin
Dear gosh, I hugely admire Mark in that second story. He was quickly able to figure out the quirks and interests of the first two interviewers and quickly play up to them, showing a lot of personal intelligence. But when it really mattered, he was honest and upfront and used all he'd noticed and figured out about the company to make a really good guess on what it was about and ask the really pivotal question on which he'd decided his whole decision to work there would be based upon. The fact the question ended up changing someone elses employment status shows just how pivotal it was.
Admin
Oh I agree with you on that but this story, if you call this embellished it is embellished to the point of fantasy. I can beleive everything up to the point of the final interview. At that point it becomes pure fantasy or is embellished so much that it might as well be fantasy.
Admin
What's so hard to believe about The Last Interview? There are tons of people that are unhappy where they work. Sometimes these people give interviews. It's not a far stretch to imagine that some enthusiastic kid comes in for an interview, recognizes the company is a mess, and is honest with the interviewer (whom he has some chemistry with). The pep talk motivates said interviewer into making a change in their life.
Now, if the story ended with a call from the police because the poor guy killed himself when he realized his life sucked, then yes, you guys might have a case. Otherwise, I'm going to score this one as "Plausible".
Admin
And all the posters are Alex's sock puppets. (Including you.) (Shut up!) (No, you!)
Admin
I can full well believe the 'last interview' story as well. Right out of high school I got a (really crappy) job but the gentleman who interviewed me was very nice and a 'gentleman' in the true old school sense of the word. I found another job several months later (better hours, better pay, etc), and he was the first person whom I told that I was leaving. His reply "Good idea, and I'm not surprised to hear you say that. I'm looking for another job too." The HR gentleman found a new job before I left. The shop manager was a total @ss about it when I told him I was leaving, but what comes around goes around. Shortly after I left that company, the FBI came and arrested the owner. Turns out that he had made a number of poor / shady business deals and pissed away damn near everything - including the employee's company invested retirement funds, etc. Numbskull the manager lost his shirt on that one (along with a lot of good people unfortunately). A couple years later, another former employee and I are laughing as we're reading the news paper and again - there's the former owner on the front page being arrested. This time he was arrested for taking bank loans and then trying to hide the collateral for the loans.
I can honestly say that I'm glad the gentleman who interviewed me was smart enough to get out while the getting was good, and honest enough to clue me into the fact that it was the time to get out.
Admin
Ahh... recruiters. The Cause of and solution to all of IT's employment problems.
Admin
How do you know when a Tech Recruiter is lying?
His lips are moving
What's the difference between a used Car Salesman, and a Tech recruiter?
The used car Salesman knows when he is lying.
Admin
When you know you're not going to take the job and have nothing invested you can afford to be honest.
And 'honest' can mean brutally honest. I don't doubt that the story has grown in the telling but if the overall sequence is correct then I can see it happening.
Sometimes it takes a wake-up call from outside to make you see things you take for granted. This could have just as easily backfired as IT communities tend to be tight and information gets around. So if the hiring manager had been offended the interviewee may have found it quite difficult to get a job in the relatively near future.
I made the mistake of taking a job after five hours of interviewing. Yes, five hours. I didn't see that for what it was and run screaming into the night. If that happened again my final interview would be quite different and probably more in line with what the article detailed.
Admin
Been there. One of my worst interviews, but most memorable. If they hired me, she would've been my manager, and I just couldn't get the thought out of my head that I would be working under her. Mmmm
Admin
That is totally a different thing, if I understand correctly you were already in the company and working with the people. I have been in that situation as well.
In this case I think the first interview is certain plausible, with HR. The second interview with the peer, yes, it is plausible. I doubt the interviewees’ spidee-sense was tingling about a peer worrying he might "rock the boat". You can pretty much assume a potential peer is concerned you might come in and show them up. As for the third interview with the hiring manager...well. Yes it is plausible to have chemistry with the person interviewing you, it has happened with me. If you have this chemistry you tend to feel more relaxed and may say things you normally might not say in an interview so I can easily believe the comments about the recruiting documentation and the benefits. However, unless you are a total idiot, regardless of chemistry, you will still be somewhat restrained in what you say, especially if you risk insulting the person or the company. I can accept as plausible everything up to the soliloquy. I could see someone asking the manager "hey, give it me straight, is this a good place to work?" But I certainly cannot believe someone is going to go into this kind of tirade, sounding like Elis from Die Hard. And I really can't believe the manager would just up and quit his job and then call some random person he doesn't really even know and tell him. I don’t mind embellishment, it makes an otherwise dull story fun, but when the entire point of the story, the punch line if you will, is a lie then what’s the point. There are enough true stories as screwed up as this out there that making one up is not necessary.
And I am sure you will all be happy when I say... This is the last I will speak on this subject.
Admin
the second story reminded me of that soliloquy in "Good Will Hunting" during the NSA interview
Admin
Uh...they're a solution?
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Irish girl???
Admin
Put yourself in the manager's shoes. He hates his job, he can't do anything with the staff he has and all of the people who passed through the first two interviews so far have been mediocre at best. Unexpectedly you get a great guy that you that actually seems to understand what you are going through and sees the problems in your company just by going through two interviews, he is PERFECT for the job but he's asking you one question, whether you actually plan to stay with the company. That's when you realize that the answer isn't in hiring a good employee, you realize that the best thing for you is to cut your losses and get out. I think it's completely believable, and it's cool, he made a life altering move all because of the one interview. If I were in his position I probably would call and let that person know how much of a change they made in my life. I probably wouldn't call at 6AM though.
Admin
The second story was believable, but would have been moreso if he had become great friends with the manager and started to hang out or something. It was a little odd to have someone you have met once call you to say that you inspired them to quit their job, and leave it at that. At the least, you should have met for coffee or lunch to be personally thanked.
Admin
I find the second story very boring and it has been repeated in this site so many times that it is not funny at all.
The last one did make me laugh, there are some people who just don't seem to get it.
Admin
I like how in the second story, he and the hiring manager "chatted as humans". But so the other people he interviewed with were, what, chickens?
Admin
Admin
Robots? I would describe the behavior as a finite-state automaton. Once I had an interview with a TLF for a C++/Java (OO) job. The interviewer asks me what are the differences between C++ and VB (the old one), never mind I have no VB anywhere in my resume. I tell the interviewer I know nothing about VB and I can only repeat hearsay, and she goes on with another VB question!
I had derailed the script and it was going on it's inertia. Let's say I did not get a job there....
Admin
I don't know; sometimes half the commenters on this site whine on that a story just couldn't possibly be true ("Shenanigans!"), and the other half complain that there's nothing new or entertaining here any more. Sheesh.
I have a solution to this problem. Bandwidth being important and all, Alex should abolish Mandatory Fun Day (thus depriving us all of the dubious wisdom of a third half of commentators) and replace it with faxed articles from the National Enquirer. From sepia photographs taken on a wooden table and authenticated with the signature of Salvador Dali, obviously.
No, they wouldn't be true, and they wouldn't be accurate, either, but they might just possibly scratch a mental itch. They'd be a hell of a lot less effort, too.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, I thought Rob's story was brillant -- good enough to be a short story in in the New Yorker, with an edit on the ego-puffery of his final comments. (I'd have made the same comments as well; they just don't work so well in a short story.)
Admin
Three cheers for both parties in The Last Interview!
Admin
I've had a similar problem. "Once a week" can have two different meanings.
Admin
One of the rare WTFs that made me smile real big. Way to help somebody face his life honestly.
Admin
I wonder if this guy was one of Lyle's brothers?
Admin
Admin
Wrinkler Mark: you get annoyed far too easily to do interviews. He yanked your chain, and you flushed.
Admin
A waste of time if you've already not taking the job?
Admin
Wrinkle in Time sounds about right. There are people that stupid out there. When they finally figure it out, they cover their tracks and try to make you the liar.
I also call bull$hit on The Last Interview. Each segment in isolation is plausible, but it's all too far fetched when taken as a whole. Mark is just way too cool for the rest of us who care about lunchtime I guess. Embellishment indeed!
Admin
You can always add "And they lived happily ever after" when you tell the story to your kids.
Admin
Why did you booby trap your own resume?
Admin
I'd like "The Last Interview" better if the manager would go to the guys home in the middle of the night and said "I quit!" and then they'd have passionately sex for the rest of the night.
The next morning Mark would wake up with a note beside his bed. It'd read: "Dear Mark. I had to go away. I can't tell you where I'll go because I don't know it myself. I'm finally back in the world. I wish I could get to know you better, I wish we had met in other time. But then again, you liberated me just in the right time. I hope someday, somewhere else we'll meet again.". Years after that interview, when Mark caughts himself looking at a bright full moon he swears he can hear the wind wispering the manager's name.
Also, after those additions, the title of the story should become Hot, Hot, Hot!
Admin
Any interview isn't a complete waste of (your) time. You get to polish your skills and you never know what you may learn that can be useful later.
Admin
or Maybe was a cnut and got it wrong. Who knows what the truth about the company was, all we are hearing here is one persons view. Interesting story, but don't believe everything just because you read it on "the interwebs"
Admin
'or maybe Mark...'
Admin
Dear DailyWTF,
I want to tell you about an experience I recently had. As an avid reader I've always wondered if the stories you publish are true. I'm a DBA and one afternoon my assistant and I decided to have a little fun with one of our servers...
Admin
Well, you can call me naive if you like, but I enjoyed all of these. I don't care if they are true or not, I find them entertaining, and they remind me of some of the muppets I've had to confront in interviews over the last 20 years. More please.
Admin
One of new jobs started on 2nd January and I had finished the previous job a week before.
One HR Interviewer asked me what I was doing between the two jobs - my answer was celebrating Christmas. I was glad I did not get that job - it was Enron 6 months before they collapsed.
Admin
I always thought the cause of all IT's problems were Marketing/Sales
Admin
So what was it? Did you "start the new job January 2nd", or did you "not get that job"?
I think Enron should have been the one glad you didn't get that job. :-)
Admin
I think Job A finished on 24th December, Job B started on 2nd January. Then, during an interview for Job C (Enron), an interviewer asked what they were doing between Job A and Job B.
Even if it hadn't been Christmas between the jobs, asking what someone was doing for a week between jobs is a dumb question anyway. If it was me, I'd probably be doing some DIY, gardening, XBoxing, watching TV, sleeping in, etc; it wouldn't be anything deep and meaningful in a week...
Admin
Man, if I could get the person interviewing me to quit the next morning, I would consider that the most successful interview ever. You are my hero. Things dont change unless we have the guts and stamina to change them, and sometimes the ROI isn't worth it, and we are better off leaving.
Admin
I would work under Irish girl!
Admin
Your resume just caught on fire. WHAT DO YOU DO?!?!?
Admin
I was trying to come up with something to say other than "WTF," when I noticed my résumé catch fire.
I've seen a Bible catch fire when held by a vampire. Wait, it was a sales guy. Not sure. Something bloodthirsty anyway.
So... Your resume had a verse from the Holy Church of Decent Workplaces and it caught fire when she touched it. Pretty normal I'd say. You should patent it.
Plus, if she was a smoker, she could probably save on lighters than way.