Why don’t big companies invest in making engineers better interviewers.
I have been interviewing these past couple of months. The common pattern which I see during these interviews is that most of the folks in bigger companies are terrible at interviewing. No communication with the candidate, no feedback / guidance during the interview, no friendly gestures / No questions at the end. I have had interviews where interviewee was deploying code to prod while I was whiteboarding a question. They just come in , ask the question they are supposed to and sit there and wait for you to write the code. These interviews are the interface between a candidate and the company. Why don’t these companies do anything to make the experience better for candidates. Any thoughts?
this happened an year ago. The recruiter kind of seemed familiar with that person’s attitude actually. She told me that “oh, john (not a real name) can be tough sometimes. Sorry about the experience “ . Whatever. Didn’t apply there after that. Got much better offers.
Small companies dont invest in it even more haha
Because in the end engineers are paid to deliver results, not hire people. Hiring is an extremely expensive process and if they didn't have to do it, they wouldn't. I think the only reason they make engineers interview vs letting management make the decision on it's own is that our skill set is extremely hard for lay-people to assess, because no one else really understands what we do.
It makes me sad that this is so prevalent. Every time I mentor interviewers, I encourage them to collaborate with the candidate in any coding problem. Every time an interviewer reports that a candidate “just couldn’t get a solution”, I ask what kind of hints or guidance they gave the candidate, and how they plan to handle it in the future. There are some of us who want to improve this. As for your experience interviewer deploying code during an interview, I think you made the right choice. I would worry about either teammates who won’t give you the time of day, or management so unyielding that individuals feel compelled to deliver solely for self-preservation.
I think companies do invest in improving interviewers, but who knows how effective that investment is? Hiring managers are busy folks who are dealing with the additional stress of being low on headcount and still having to deliver results. If they haven’t had a refresher on interview training in a while, it’s highly unlikely that they’d have the bandwidth to get a refresher.
What kind of person makes an investment without being able to calculate the return?
Because they don’t to. There are tons of people like you who are still willing to take the job even though you are treated as shit!
I agree. Btw i stepped out of that one interview which I mentioned in the OP. That was way too disrespectful of them. After that round, I was like “ok, can i skip the other rounds and stepped out”
That’s good. Just write a review on Glassdoor too and send an email to the HR along with the name of the interviewer. Maybe it’s just the person and not the company. Depending on how they respond, you will soon find out !