wow amazing thread.

The transition from excited interviewee, to verbal passive aggression, to physical violence made me laugh.

This is an absolutely brilliant method of getting sales by Starbucks, and I am amazed at their ingenuity. I wonder if they have 'practical jokes' like this every week.

Ray

This interview itself wasn't too bad, but it just belonged in the category of "pointless and endless" with a dash of misfiring good intentions.

I had been out of college a few months, and I didn't have a good job lined up (I traveled throughout the summer, and the plan was just to do whatever and play poker on the side). It was tough to get something going in finance or consulting in 2003, so I didn't expect much. I got an interview at a relatively new consulting firm, of about 35 people. The HR manager (president's wife) really liked me, and after a short phone call, we scheduled a longer phone interview (I think I talked to 2 people, 1 hr each, learned about the company from some associates), I came in for an interview.

I interviewed for about 2 hours, with 3 or 4 people, and got the impression that, in this startup, the structure was pretty fluid and there were a couple roles I could fit into. It went pretty well, and I started to feel it would be a good place to work. They asked me to come in again, so I could talk to more people.

I came in a week later for about a six-hour interview, and talked to multiple people from every group, some of whom were honestly just wasting their time talking to me.

After the whole grueling experience, the recruiter asked me about compensation, and I had no clue what to say. I just mumbled something about whatever they pay new graduates, but I would have been thrilled to get $40k. She told me she would call me back in a day or two.

I called back three days later, thinking I had already been rejected, but she said they just needed more time to figure out what group I would be working with and made it sound like it was just a formality. THEN, she said to expect a call before October 20th. I thought, "What the ****?" because it was still the first week of October.

Needless to say, I ended up calling them after the deadline to find out I didn't get the job. This was one of those rare interview experiences where someone being TOO NICE made the whole process difficult.

Not as funny as some, but I got a laugh out of it.

I interviewed for an internship about a month ago (fyi at the end of this internship, the top interns get a completely free 4-day trip to the Bahamas). The interviewer and I hit it off pretty well and were joking around when he told me this story. The day before a girl came in to interview for that intership. The interviewer asked her why she wanted this internship and she simply said "I just want the free trip to the Bahamas." The interviewer thought she was joking around and asked again, but again she said "No I really just want a free trip to the Bahamas." She obviously did not get the internship.

Yeah, when I started interviewing people I was definitely one of those people that was too nice. I knew as I was doing it that it was ****ty since I wasn't helping the interviewee I was just making it easier on myself. But sometimes its hard to tell a nice person that they sucked at the end of an interview. I had one 40 year old lady that was trying to get back in the industry and I was clearly her first interview. She was super-nice but totally underqualified. At the end she was like "So, how'd I do?". The best I could do was, "well... you did alright".

Thats when I realized I had to grow a pair and actually tell people how they did. There's definitely a fine balance between being nice and friendly, but still giving people real feedback.

More than ten years ago. The only office job I ever applied for. After a decent interview, I am well qualified for the job, the subject of compensation:

They: we offer 2500 guilders for the job.

Me: per week?

Awkward silence, end of the interview. Kthxbye!

I'm assuming a guilder is some soft of construction worker and the "per week?" comment was a joke given that you would end up with an outrageous number of construction guys just hanging around.

afaik guilders was the dutch currency until it was replaced by the euro in 2002.
was a weak currency iirc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_gulden

bumping this rather than thread-tarding.

I am going to have the first interview of my life in the next few weeks - on telephone. It's kind of a "competency" thing - just to check i have the social/practical skills and experience to be in the job (it's in risk management for a bank, btw).

They have given a lot of advice re: preparation, looking at my experience and finding evidence beyond my degree etc., also confidence/rapport etc. and how to structure a response to highlight the project/issues/dealing with them and the results, and i'll do some prep work but should be fine - i'm a quick enough thinker and am a damn sight more persuasive than empirical in conversation.

However, it's going to be weird doing this over the phone. I was wondering if OOT can

a) give me some likely questions they'll pitch [this will probably be a pretty formulaic affair] so i can do extra prep

b) give me some tips on best phone interview technique, and

c) any other words of advice.

Thanks guys. Much as I hate to give up being a lazy schmoe, it's time to get a job.
Pete

You don't need us for this. Just google "interview questions to expect" or something and you'll find a list of questions and probably amswers.

Respond quickly. Dead air on phone calls is painful as hell for everyone.

Make notes - in a phone interview they can't see you refer to your notes so you should be able to have some good "go to" things to talk about in front of you.

Useful any interview. Think of 5 essential things which you want to say about yourself which will make yourself look good and make sure you fit them in somehow.

If no suitable question comes up, just volunteer it after answering something else. SO long as they are good points, no interviewer is going to object to you giving them extra info.

I should imagine that quants have to do this kind of thing quite often and it's probably useful to be able to do a lot of it in your head. Knowing what 1.5 ^ 9 is isn't really that hard to estimate, though knowing the exact figure is fairly unreasonable.

You could probably just say "75k, 112.5k, 168.75k" etc, up to 10 years.

my worst experience was being interviewed by 9 dimwits separated.
wasted my whole morning... got asked the same lame stupid questions
over and over and over again by people who were largely totally
unqualified to ask technical questions so they didn't...

and btw i hate this question, this is when you know the interviewer
is just mailing it in and probably not listening to a word you say:

"...and what are some of your weaknesses?"

i like to say "chocolate and pizza" and then clam up.

if they repeat the question, i'll say "i watch to much TV on weekends."

Hey, I agree with you on the stupidity of the question...

...but if you answer it like that, you're most likely blackballing yourself of the job.

I'd pitch for the "when i lead a project, I sometimes take too much on instead of delegating better" or "I used to submit papers at the last minute at uni, but now I plan more effectively and finish well ahead of time" clichés.

I've always thought "what are your weaknesses?" is a great question. You get to weed out the people who are lying, are prone to blow smoke up peoples' asses, have a destructive amount of overconfidence, cannot honestly self-assess themselves, and don't know their own limitations.

My greatest weakness: I put a lot of pressure on myself, and that causes me to get frustrated when I'm working on something and it's not cooperating.

See guys, it's simple. Be honest, but not too honest.

We've been told by HR that telling an interviewee how they did in the interview is one of a handful of things we're absolutely not allowed to do (it's on the same list as asking their age, race, etc.) The policy doesn't explain why, but I asked a lawyer friend once and he said he thought it was because if you tell someone they did well and they wind up not getting the job, it gives them some basis to sue. Anyway, I don't know what I'd do if anyone ever asked me how they just did at the end of an interview (no one ever has yet...is it normal? I'd certainly never ask). "I'm not allowed to tell you" certainly doesn't sound too good...

Here's what I hate when I'm doing a phone screen with someone:

- Background noise. If you live with three other guys arrange to get the call somewhere else. If you can't do that lock yourself in your room and make it as quiet as possible.
- Be home. Its mind-blowing how many people aren't home when I call even after the time has been confirmed. If I miss the person they have to have a good reason and be extra good to stay in the process.
- Getting cut off by the person I'm interviewing. If someone is going down the wrong track, missed an important point or is just rambling I want to correct them as soon as possible. When people keep cutting me off and don't let me correct them it pisses me off. Its wasting both of our time.


Things you should do:
- Have your resume in front of you. Have any job descriptions you have. Have a computer with google. Have anything you think might be needed. The resume is especially important because most of the time the person interviewing you is looking at it, and its a lot easier if you're both looking at the same thing.
- Make sure you understand what the question is. Ask questions if you didn't hear something. Repeat the question back in your own words. Most interviewers don't really care if a person is really good at hearing things over the phone so don't care if they need to say something twice. Its much better then answering the wrong question.
- Try to stay concise. Interviewing over the phone can get boring, and its easy for the interviewers attention to wander. You have to work a little harder to keep their attention then you would have to do in person.

Its not normal, but its not rare.

One of the things that I like about my company is that we'd never have a rule like that. Its important to most people in our company to recruit the right way and make sure we treat people well (even people we're not going to hire). We make sure we carefully track why someone wasn't hired, but we're not paranoid about things like getting sued because a person interviewing told someone they did alright, and then they don't get hired.

I had been laid off from a software development job a few months earlier, and was getting desperate to find work. A friend of the family heard that I was looking for work and got me an interview for a web development job with the government. She told me that they weren't interviewing anyone else, and that I'd have the job if I answered their questions half-intelligently. Her brother was the manager for the department. I figured I was a shoo-in.

I show up for the interview, meet her brother, but then am told that he forgot that he had another meeting scheduled for the same time-frame as my interview, and that one of his lead programmers would be conducting the interview instead. He showed me into one of the meeting rooms, and told me that the interviewer would be by shortly.

After what seemed like an eternity, the lead programmer walks into the room. He was Chinese -- and spoke with the heaviest accent you have ever heard in your life. He also spoke extremely broken english. Right from the get-go, I cannot understand a word that this guy is saying to me. He immediately started asking me very technical questions, but I couldn't make out half of what he was saying. I asked him to repeat himself a few times, but he started looking pissed off whenever this happened, so I eventually started trying to guess at what he was asking me. It was obvious that I was guessing wrong, as he'd give me completely bewildered looks all the way through my answers. When I was done answering each question, he'd shake his head condescendingly and sigh.

He ended up cutting me off half-way through one of my answers, and thanked me for coming in. By this point, I wanted to punch him in the face.

I received a phone-call from the manager later that afternoon to tell me that they wouldn't be offering me the position as I "did not have the technical skills required". I had to resist hanging up on him.

qft.

thanks jjshabado, i was wondering about specifically phone things. The interview is graduate-position so it's basic competency; i'll make sure i'm somewhere peaceful and have my laptop to hand lol.

Thanks again, great help.

Maybe one of the technical skills required is an understanding of Chinglish.