Hey guys, just curious if you’ve had similar experiences as well. Recently interviewed for a semiconductor company based out of California. The hiring manager was more keen on what I had done at tesla rather than judge me as a candidate holistically. Curious if anyone else has hand any other similar experiences like this! If so please share your experiences as well! Would love to know. Blind tax : 100k, 90k, 95k wtf is going on in this market
It really depends on the interviewers style. Some like to go deep into what you did and ask lots of questions about how you handled different problems in that design based on how well they understood what you worked on. Believe me a lot of people that I have interviewed hardly know second level of details of why some decisions were made that way in their design. How to make design choices etc. Other style is to ignore what you did and go directly to asking lots of interview questions in the field you are applying for and the questions complexity based on your experience in the field. Kind of like Google HW interviews. Personally I feel a mix of the two is the best approach but it totally depends on what interviewers think has worked for them in the past in finding good candidates.
Hello intel Thank you for your response! I think my question might not have been as clear! I understand that going in depth on certain aspects and going broader with your thought process are 2 different schools of thought! But with that being said, if you as a candidate we’re only asked to talk about your experience at intel and the interviewer discounts all your other experiences, doesn’t that seem odd? If I had relevant experience with company B but you focus more on company A, doesn’t that imply you’re discounting previous experience 🤨 Just food for thought!
Not necessarily discounting your experience. But it could be that what you did at your recent job is more relevant for what they are looking for or the interviewer is not familiar with the domain you worked on in previous companies and many time candidates say I don’t remember details when discussed about an older experience cause it generally would have been some time since they did that. So, as long as you did well in the discussion and kept the interviewer positively engaged with right attitude, nothing to be worried about if you just spoke about only the recent experience. After all interviewer gets a limited time to talk to the candidate and can’t talk about all the experiences. But ofcourse you can always bring up previous experience if you feel is a bigger selling point by making Segway into the previous experience at the right time when talking about current experience. Just many ways to do things, that’s all.
It depends on the level of detail we can share. As long as you don't share trade secret, that is fine. Also, the interviewers must not intentionally or accidentally get into trade secret from you. He or she even has to have experience to stop you if he or she thinks you are getting into that. It is both morality and I believe could be legal side. They also should not want a person sharing because the same person can share about their company to a new employer later.
Judge candidate holistically meaning what? Do you have other semiconductor experiences or companies or graduate work on your resume you felt was more relevant?
You are as good as the interviewer’s perception of you. So, don’t worry. Keep interviewing.
What semiconductor company?
It depends on the HM and the role. Some people will be interested in your all experiences especially if they are thinking about future roles and transfers. Some will only focus on certain experiences. If I am in the latter situation, I would assume they are planning to have me in the same role or same area for some time and they are looking for expertise. And my interest will disappear immediately. Depends on what you are looking for.
Yup This is what I was leaning towards as well! But my exp at tesla wasn’t the reason why I got picked.
Semi conductor company AKA Lam research 🧐
I had interviewed at AMAT last year. I interviewed with 9 people(8 technical). Everyone wanted to learn more about my engineering expertise I used at my previous roles except there was one engineering director who was trying to force me to reveal a process(trade secret) from my current job at that time. I told him straight away I cannot talk about it. He ended the interview. 7/9 interviewers gave me a great feedback expect this guy (and one more). I was ghosted. HM reached out again later but I had accepted another offer by then. - There are shitty HMs everywhere. You were probably unlucky to came across one. - Another possible reason: Having worked in both Automotive, and Semiconductors Industries as a Mechanical engineer , I believe one needs to be technical more sound in Semiconductors. Ao maybe the HM was trying to learn that but failed to communicate properly.
Oh that’s nice! Yes I didn’t think of it this way either. Anything to make me better equipped for the future interviews! Thanks for the feedback 😃
Usually candidate's evaluation is internal. The panel sit down at the end of panel interview day and discuss about the candidate. It is strange to me you can know that guy's input. Maybe AMAT reveals the evaluation form to candidates?
I think it happens very often in the bay area... my experience has been several times with apple... I think they have some openings that are not real and just want to get intelligence on who does what by the people who apply...
That’s frightening to say the least. With apple making a not so secretive electric car, it makes me wonder if they hire us for experience or hire us because we know IP and trade secrets that we’ve learnt throughout the years of working here!
For sure they hire for know hows ... but I'm saying that they may not even want to hire you... they just want to learn on things from your interview....
For people voting no Was this a poor interview experience or was the HM incompetent?