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Admin
This just reinforces my opinion that while it's not often a good idea to burn your bridges, you should never, ever cross them again.
:)
I also apply this (with a little less generality) to significant others. If it ever got so bad that you couldn't work it out, it's not really going to ever work again, mainly because the strength of the relationship wasn't enough to hold your baggage last time.
(Mainly this keeps you from thinking that your ex was the best you'll ever have.)
Admin
Takes me back, things your told in an interview about what you will be doing and where the company is going, and it all turns out that you end up working with 12 access databases and some VBA in excel sheets...
Admin
I don't understand the point of going back for an interview when you already know you don't want the job and it's a terrible company to work for.
Admin
When your company bullshits itself into a corner like this, is it ethically reprehensible to let them keep doing that? If so, is it any more reprehensible to laugh at them?
Admin
This is the very first time I have read a story on TDWTF and thought, "No way, this can't possibly be true."
Admin
You always hear about people stretching the truth or lying outright on their resumes...this is an example of why it's nice to personally know someone who works for the company that you interview with - otherwise, who holds them accountable?
Admin
Words of advice about interviewing. First, the interview process is as much about you learning about them as it is them learning about you. Since you don't know these people, it's very easy to trust their salesman-like pitch. Keep track of all the buzz-words and catch-phrases that you hear. If they average more than 1 per minute, run away.
I've also interviewed a ton of people and can speak from my own experiences what we look for. I'm in the Civil Engineering world, so I imagine that things are slightly different in IT. But we are less interested in the skill set and more interested in how the person would fit into the company. We can train them on skills. But if we don't think the personality is worthwhile, we don't make an offer regardless of how much experience they have. Personally, I'm never comfortable with a person that doesn't ask questions about us. And when I'm on the fence between two applicants -- the one that follows up with a phone call or a note (even an e-mail) thanking me for my time gets the job. Only about 30% of the people ever do that...but we remember 100% of the people that follow-up.
Admin
Well, sometimes it happens, that the company can undergo change ... and sometimes someone maybe want to see it on his own eyes
Admin
Hey, if I had nothing better to do, I would have re-interviewed, just to see what sort of mess the company had gotten itself into.
What the heck? Why is my CAPTCHA "incassum"?
Admin
How in the world does a company like this stay in business? My only guess is that their IT department makes up a very small portion of their total business. They're certainly not spending much of their MULTI-MILLIONS on it.
Admin
New captchas! I got "quibis" last time and "uxor" this time. What, no waffles?
Admin
its sad that people have to work at such stupid places, and even sadder that they stay in business because their customers are even stupider
life is too short to work for stupid companies
Admin
I'm Kirk, so I'm getting a kick out of these replies...
nice editing there Alex. You took a sad sack of a story and turned it into a good WTF.
And to answer the question "why re-interview with a company you know you don't want to join", I was trying to find out whether I had burnt that bridge ("livid", remember?), or just singed it slightly.
Admin
Admin
Air quotes are a dead giveaway that you don't want to work there.
Admin
Since I'm here talking about interviews, I might as well toss out a few other tips. I don't have a lot of interview experience - I have only interviewed with five companies - but every single interview I have had resulted in a job offer. YMMV of course.
Wear a suit, even if you are told that "business casual" is fine. "Business Casual" is a very nebulous term and it means different things everywhere. Best to be safe. Besides; you never know who else you will see in the company, and looking nice never hurts.
Guys: Get a standard "businessman" haircut. Take out your earrings. Cover up that Playboy tattoo you think was so cool when you were 18. Trim your beard, if you have one. If not, then shave. Don't wear a hat.
If you are like me and completely fashion deficient, go to The Men's Warehouse or a similar shop. Find someone who works there and say, "I have an interview. Make me look nice." Only your wallet will regret it.
Yeah, superficial stuff all, but remember: People are superficial, especially the HR types. (IT people are much less so in my experience, but still: Look presentable.)
I always carry with me one of those nice looking leather folders. Inside: A notepad, one or two pens, at least 5 copies of my resume, and a list of questions that I have for the company.
Take notes during the interview!
A few questions that I have asked: a) Why is this position open? b) If I were hired, to whom would I report? Can I meet him/her? c) Can you give me an example of a typical day in this position?
a) is vital. A good answer to this is, "We are growing right now and we need the people." b) is important; Having to report to someone you loathe makes work hell. c) gives you insight into not only the position, but how the company as a whole works.
These days, if you are going for an IT job you will interview with a developer or a programming manager of some kind. They will ask you technical questions. If you don't know the answer, then say so. DO NOT, EVER try to fake an answer. It is far better to say "I don't know" than to make something up.
If you don't know the answer to a problem (or even if you do!), then it doesn't hurt to ask your interviewer how THEY would solve that particular problem. It shows humility, it shows you are willing to learn, and perhaps most important it strokes the ego of the person interviewing you. It will also give you an idea of how well their system is put together. If your interviewer give you some whacko solution to a lot of problems, then you may want to run.
Oh, and one last thing. Use a new email address, one that isn't used for anything else. Companies like to search email addresses these days, and if they link it back to postings on a site, or your blog, or whatever, then they may see something that they don't like.
Hope that helps someone out there! Best of luck.
Admin
Yes, please do bring new copies of your resume as your interviewers may have ones 2 years out of date with all formatting stripped.
Depends, if the question is a complex/thinking/problem solving one then you should imho try to solve it. If you don’t know or need hints then say so but at the same time make your thought process known as well. Knowing that you can solve problems but just got unlucky this time is more important than someone regurgitating the answer from memory.
Admin
Don't you wish you had burned and buried it? From the story it sounds like you had a robot in HR that didn't even remember you at all. Why else would she spout the standard script for an ex-employee?
Admin
I've got chills!!
Admin
I kept waiting for the 'airline benefits' to be all-you-can-eat honey roasted peanuts.
Admin
Actually, Haylee wasn't in HR. One of Alex's edits - although I'm not sure I clarified that in the original - she was an IT project manager and is now a manager. And a robot. She remembered me - we worked together for those 4 years and she was the one responsible for telling me the wage freeze was still on. The "company" speech was like a practiced speech that she could not avoid telling. She is a robot.
Admin
True story: Headhunter calls me up and arranges an interview for a position at some local company. Before submitting my resume to the company, however, they want a pre-interview at the staffing firm with a "senior" headhunter. The interview is going pretty well until the headhunter goes off on me for some answer - basically "Don't EVER tell a recruiter that you're not desperate for a job..." (Well, I wasn't - I heard about an opportunity and was evaluating it carefully, but I already had a pretty good job that wasn't in any danger...) The interview pretty much stopped there.
As I'm getting my things together, the headhunter continues: "Oh, one other thing - there's something on your resume that I find highly inappropriate and would strongly advise you to remove before submitting it to anyone else. Are you aware of the item I'm talking about?" Frankly, I was baffled.
I stammered something in response and he pushed his copy of my resume across the table to me. Of course it was in Courier text with >> in front of every line - when I forwarded my resume someone had copied the text into the body of an e-mail and forwarded it. Highlighted in yellow and with pen markings around it was a Jack Handey quote that had been in someone's e-mail signature in the chain of people who had received and forwarded it. It was something like "I want to take care of the environment for my kids, but not for my kids' kids, because I don't think kids should be having sex." (For the int'l audience, Jack Handey is a segment on Saturday Night Live where they play some pseudo-inspirational quote that has some bizarre or ironic twist in it - think "It's sad to think an entire family can be torn apart by something as simple as a pack of wild dogs.")
The headhunter said "I really don't think your political views have any business on your resume." I wasn't sure whether to laugh or run, so I mutely handed him a "real" copy of my resume, nicely printed and formatted - and without any "political views" in sight. He looked at it blankly for a second and then said "Thank you for your time."
They never called me back.
Admin
It's probably just me, but I start to feel really awkward if I'm the only one in the room wearing a suit. So much so that it degrades my performance in the interview, makes me look like a retard. Shirt and tie with no coat keeps me feeling a little more at ease, and still looking presentable.
What are your thoughts on saying "I don't know, but here's a crazy guess. In the real world I'd be googling the answer right now"?
Some may say it's cheating to Google during a phone interview. I caught myself doing it instinctively once, asked the interviewer about it. He told me it normally annoys him, but he was impressed that I managed to do it without him even suspecting. Evidently I type quietly.
Good idea, but only if there's something bad associated with your other addresses. If they see you making forum posts to relevant websites (even this one, if I was the interviewer), they'll be impressed and they'll learn something about you. If they get no hits, they're going to assume you've got something to hide.
Also, do a few vanity googles to see what's associated with your real name. My name is fairly uncommon, but there's one other, and he plays college rugby, so it ends up looking like I'm some big rugby fan. If your name happens to be Cho Seung-Hui or something, try to jokingly work it into the interview before they ask about it.
Admin
You know, this feels like a script to one of those surreal horrors/thrillers without monsters or ghosts, but the atmosphere created by the director is just so dense that you cannot forget it and wake up in the middle of the night, screaming. Or one of those really really weird movies you see in the TV once, and can never find them again anywhere, but they still sit in the back of your brain, giving you the shivers. Think something like Being John Malkovich mixed with Eraserhead and made underground. It just creeps you out.
PS: Social-networking is the next most obnoxious and meaningless buzzwords right after Web 2.0.
Admin
The way I figure it is that if I show up to an interview in a country and western suit and they don't like it, then they are probably too stuffy anyway.
Admin
really? This really happened?
I would certainly interview again, just to find out if it was for real. I'm not sure I believe it!
Admin
In relation to that, I tend to try to do at least some basic research on any company I'm interviewing with, so I actually know what they do, what they specialize in, etc. Have some talking points and I won't be blindsided by as much. When interviewing people, I've found that I respect people more when they do things like that. It means they actually care about the interview.
Admin
Actually wear the suit. If the place is a bit more casual, just remove the jacket so you dress down to their level. Much easier to do that then to find a good jacket that matches if you need to add one.
As for the addresses, I use two different email addresses and two different identities and keep them virtually separated so the two do not cross paths with each other. One is seen if you Google for my email address I hand out to potential employers and gives a very good impression of my skills and abilities. It is known that they will search for you, use it to your advantage.
Admin
I'm surprised you let them have a clean copy. I would have shown it to him and left with it still in hand. They have already shown a lack of ethics in representation, what makes you think they won't send your clean resume along just to pad their submission count; the "dirty" one won't even go out their door.
Admin
My name happens to be Eddie Murphy. Fortunately, I can pull off a decent deadpan.
A nice new pair of kicks, huh?
Admin
Yeah, I probably wasn't thinking the most clearly. :)
Admin
Admin
Admin
It depends, for easy questions it may actually make things worse because you may come out as someone who doesn’t know much (but simply overrelies on google). The problem with that is that google takes some time to use and since you don’t know the information your brain can’t combine it with other things when solving somewhat related problems. This is of course all heavily dependent on just what type of position you’re applying for and how you answer other questions.
At the same time I do wish some candidates I interviewed did say that or something close to it. I can only hope they’d do so if they encountered this problem in reality as there are some obscenely complex solutions in literature to the problem which can be much better than the simple solutions.
Admin
Didn't Haylee realise you'd heard this stuff before?
Admin
Were you able to read her EULA before taking her out of her package, or only after you'd agreed to it?
Admin
[quote user="vt_mruhlin"][quote user="Ursus Americanus"] Also, do a few vanity googles to see what's associated with your real name. My name is fairly uncommon, but there's one other, and he plays college rugby, so it ends up looking like I'm some big rugby fan. If your name happens to be Cho Seung-Hui or something, try to jokingly work it into the interview before they ask about it.[/quote]
You'd think they'd figure out by you still being live. But at least you aren't Michael Bolton.
Admin
I don't understand the point of going back for an interview when you already know you don't want the job and it's a terrible company to work for.
Because akatherde, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
Admin
Well programming in assembly sounds like fun.
Admin
Wow, replace "INDUSTRY LEADING travel company" with, "INDUSTRY LEADING wireless company", one year anniversary with 6 month anniversary, add in 13 rounds of layoffs, and change re-interview years later with contract offer 1 month later, and you have my previous job.
Admin
I'm guessing that the bridge was never even exposed to anything above room temperature. Else, how could the same HR blonde^W bonehead^W person interview a former employee without even a hint of recognition?
Admin
Not only does it show interest, it gives the interviewer an opportunity to talk about himself (or at least his company), which makes you seem like an absolutely brilliant conversationalist. Dale Carnegie, in his book "How To Win Friends and Influence People," tells a tale of an evening he spent allowing a woman he met at a party to talk about herself. She later reported that he was so very interesting to talk to...
Admin
The real WTF is that he stayed there 4 years.
Admin
Another important question for most companies I've interviewed is to get an idea as to the state of the company. If they're publicly traded, look at their stock price and public filings before you go in there. Check out their website, and see how desperate for sales they look. Once you've done some research on that, ask your interviewer about it. Be as specific as you can.
This often goes along with "Why are you interested in hiring people?", but it's also a separate issue: You want somewhere that's doing well enough that they can afford you easily, and can afford the raises you'll want later on.
Admin
awesome. =)
Admin
That's a very fascinating story, and educating at the same time. Thanks for sharing 'Kirk!'
Admin
I got called up for a phone-screen with google and the first question I was asked was "How's the third one?" and I could clearly hear the grin on the caller's face. Puzzled, I thought for a minute and reluctantly said "huh?" (a word that should really never be uttered in an interview).
Turns out the guy had googled me and was making a reference to the fictional biography on my band's website which said that I had a third testicle and had spent a year as a woman (but had gone back to being a dude because as a woman I was expected to wash occasionally).
I guess the moral of this story is that if you're going to be googled by a potential employer, you better a) hope they have a sense of humour or b) make sure your name is squeaky clean when checked.
Admin
They're multiplying.
Admin
So, I've re-interviewd in the past for a job. I must admit to agreeing to it for the main reason of seeing what the company was like now.
Way back when I joined at the tail end of the dot com boom, when they were recruiting like mad and had pots o'cash. Then almost immediately after joining, there was a pay freeze, slow stripping of fringe benefits (no company bought pizza for late night coding sessions etc) and eventually lay-offs. I managed to stay three years before leaving. Anyway since then I've been working for myself as an independant consultant and when I saw the old job advertised, I must admit to being intrigued, so I agreed to an interview.
The company had had a management buyout, been givenpots o'cash by a VERY large media company and things seemed to be looking up. All the people who were still there from when i left had all had payrises (backdated) Unfortunately, I didn't get the job. ;o)
Admin
Stop it! I'm losing control!