Interviewer 2 was a newbie, shadowing another interviewer (who sounded experienced), taking interview notes. In a design round while talking about a component, it was a great start until then - Me : let me think Interviewer 2 : (immediately) how about approach A? Me: (fcuk, gimme few seconds, what they said is no brainier choice) yes, that's one way to do. I also think it can be done by approach B. Explained trade-offs with A and B. Interviewer 2: Looked offended, busy taking notes, didn't acknowledged my explanation. Clearly started sounding offended. They stopped smiling right after, even during the lunch and final handshake. 🤪 Interviewer 1 agreed with the explanation. Was positive about offer but recruiter told I didn't pick hints provided by the interviewer during design round. Since the newbie was taking notes, that's all it mattered. Now, how would you deal with such interviewers? Or move on, thinking it was bad luck?
I bet they weren't brought up in the USA
You are right! Asian.
I seriously think companies need to train people how to interview.
Unfortunately there isn't much you can do IMO. A person inside has more influence even though they may be wrong for whatever reason. Unless the hiring manager or the interviewer who let this person shadow can objectively think and discount their feedback. I was taken aback when an interviewer started furiously typing during the interview. He was probably taking notes as if he can't remember the conversations later. It's okay to scribble a couple points but typing down notes and looking at me a few times meant I wasn't my best. I was kinda amused and distracted tbh.
Lol.
I would take that over an interviewer that's about to fall asleep as you're going through your system design prompt
What company was it?
Lol they'd be more offended if they read. One of the few "better" ones than Amazon. The one that's not making any profit but pays crazy money.
Snap?
You should go with the flow. You can have different opinions when you get in. Lol
Interviewing's a crapshoot. You get one interviewer asking you to explain and walk through your code, and then the next stating that time was wasted because you walked through your code 🤷🏼♂️ I don't think a trainee's notes should be considered valid for assessment, but I think the problem is not enough senior/staff+ engineers want to interview, and you have power hungry juniors wanting to strut. The worst experiences I tend to have are those interviewers that have only been working for 1-4 years.
That's a shame 😔 The best interview I had, the interviewer said barely anything. Gave me a very simple question (most college sophomores could do it with ease). And then asked questions about "but what about...", sort of like a kid who keeps asking "why" because it's fun to watch adults talk. By the end we had talked about many different aspects of design and caching and parallelization, from an absolutely /trivial/ problem. I only kind of realized at the very end, his questions didn't really have 'right' answers, he just wanted to see if I could think about different aspects. This was a bit of a tangent, but, it really taught me how an experienced interviewer can create a much more interesting and insightful interview, by saying much less, and letting things progress on their own. Sounds like your interviewer believed the opposite. :/
Great, I've interviewed people. I try to think from interviewee's shoes rather than expecting them to yell an answer that I know.
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Yep, bad luck... Move on. Maybe you could stroke their ego a little bit by talking about their approach more. But that's about it. Sorry...
Hmm. I'm retrospecting so I don't lose another opportunity like this. 😒