I felt this couple of times. One interviewer will - keep interrupting, call you wrong, be sarcastic, be strict, try to make fun of candidate (not literally). Basically, somehow make the candidate feel bad. Is this intentional or its just me? How to handle such situations? Why do they do that as candidate's first impression about the interviewer become bad? Or its not the case and interviewer is indeed a jerk? Does this happen at FAANGxxxx? Thanks in advance.
In Amazon interview, one round is the is the bar raiser. They cross question and drill deep the most. They also have veto power. They won’t make you feel bad but will check if you have a spine or not. Check if you can think straight when cross questioned
Bar Raiser is the toughest interview but they should never be rude or jerks. The contrary, we want people to have a good experience. If they get a Hire decision we want people to accept the offer. If they don't, to come back in a year or two, or tell their friends they should try. Plus candidates are our customers. We want them to keep thinking positively of us.
I have interviewed twice with Amazon. In my first interview I didn’t know about BR and that guy was a jerk. He will interrupt me, give me a bad facial expression, shake his head side to side and then scribble something. This totally threw me off because I felt I’m doing something wrong. In my second onsite I knew about BR and was able to handle them easily. Luckily in the second interview the guy was nice. He wasn’t being a total jerk like the first one.
happened to me at one of FAANG interviews. normally these people act as bar raiser in the interview panel. They are meant to stress you out and put you in tough situation. they will gauge your capability to work under pressure. In such interviews, you are meant to remain calm and answer what ever you can. If they belittle you, dont argue and accept it. if you dont know something that they ask, just say u dont know. they is no harm is telling a no. Something i learnt after the interviews..
This, in my previous company we had a director vetoing someone because the candidate try to guess an answer instead of saying he doesn't know.
Makes no sense. An interview environment is sooo much different than work environment. Being interviewed by a jerk is nowhere the same as having a “tough” situation at work.
Not at Google. If someone is doing it, it's because they're an asshole and have no place interviewing. That doesn't mean that the aren't behavioral questions / drilling deep for answers (even though I think Google's interviews are way less behavior-oriented than other companies); but they shouldn't treat you badly.
I had a similar experience in a company, one interviewer was absolutely weird, pushing me toward one solution in his head, that I didn't like and pushed back, the whole conversation was awkward, at some point I was already in "Fuck it" mode, I thought I did terribly bad in this one. They gave me a very generous offer next day, and I'm starting soon ✌🏽
Ask the next interviewer if the previous one is always an asshole or if that was just an act. Regardless of the answer, terminate the interview because it's not worth the risk of getting stuck on a team with that asshole. Then play it by ear. Worst case, you just enjoy the rest of your day off. Whereas if you stuck with it and got hired, the worst case scenario is working on a team with an asshole. Don't be afraid to be the one who says, "after reviewing the options I've decided to go with a different candidate, but thanks for your time." It is a perfectly honorable decision.
I suspect it’s less design and more distribution. When you have several high functioning, high performing individuals interviewing you, the chances of one person being a dick are fairly high. This type of individual probably gets sadistic pleasure watching interviewees squirm, and probably also compensated for their constant need of feeling superior. Hopefully others see that and remove the sociopath from the interview committee.
No, they want to hire as much as you want to get hired. That said, there are jerks everywhere and you just need to accept the fact that your day was unlucky if they end up being on your loop