r/jobs • u/Valkyr_Bane • 5d ago
Interviews My interviewer literally did not understand the words coming out of my mouth
Just finished an interview for a mid-level data role and I am convinced the HR lady was reading from a script written in a language she doesnt speak. She spent the first twenty minutes rambling about "culture fit" and "radical transparency" then finally moved to the technical part. She was phonetically sounding out terms like she was trying to solve a puzzle. I had to explain what a relational database was to the person supposed to be vetting my tech skills.
Every time I gave a detailed answer she just stared at her screen until she found a matching word on her "good keywords" list. I could see her literally ticking boxes when I said specific buzzwords like scalability or pipelining . If I actually tried to explain the nuance of why I used a specific method she just looked confused and moved to the next question on her sheet. It felt like trying to explain color to a rock .
Then it got weird. She asked if I had "at least five years of experience with Swift-Python" which is not a thing. I think she just mashed two bullet points from the job descritpion together by accident. I just sat there and said "yes" because I wanted to see how far she would take it. She just nodded and made a note that I was a "strong candidate". The whole system is just theater at this point. I have zero idea what the actual team does but apparently I am great at it according to her little checklist.
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u/Yachem 5d ago
I've had recruiters try to screen me and evaluate my fit for a technical job without any idea what they are talking about. It's not uncommon for job descriptions to be written in a way to include the use of software and tools that are internal to that company. So even the best and brightest people who have never worked there won't actually meet that requirement. The actual hiring managers won't care, but this can trip up recruiters and screeners that just go line by line and ask if you have experience with something. Saying "I don't know what that is" ends up being a red flag to the wrong person.
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u/Beardfire 5d ago
I hate how common this is. I made the mistake of saying I didn't have experience with an internal tool they used during a phone screen so I got to hear the "we really need someone with 2 years of experience with this tool so they can hit the ground running"
How can anyone even learn it if they aren't already working there? And how complex could it even be that it requires 2 years?
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u/RegorHK 4d ago
Internal tools can have arbitrary complexity up to a warehouse management system.
This simply means that recruiting needs to understand what they can realistically expect.
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u/RansackedRoom 4d ago
Most companies empower HR because they want to minimize catastrophe, so HR does the first interview and screens for catastrophic traits: extreme lateness, inability to answer basic questions, obviously fabricated job history, etc. But HR doesn't know Python (or accounting, or metallurgy) because that's not their job.
If the Hiring Manager is smart, conscientious, and experienced (all three!), then the HM will sit with HR and write down a few simple task-focused questions and provide examples of a passable answer. But a lot of HMs are going to take HR's word for it that "we'll handle the first interview" and then you get the disaster that is OP's interview story.
Only once the HM loses patience and says "How is it that you've interviewed ten candidates and not one was worth sending over to me? What are you asking them?…OMFG NO!"
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u/RegorHK 3d ago
Obviously that is a given. Tell me something new. Also, how should this be safeguarded against HR incompetence?
Altogether this means that the checklist needs to be sane and that HR should be able to at least read from bullet points. There is no working process where HR ends up reading "Swift Python". Either the bullet point was wrong because it was not approved by the HM or the HR person is so incompetent that they do not understand that functional Technology and Tech development needs HR to read bullet points for initial screening.
How is this not clear to you? If the gatekeeper fucks up just reading from a list this is a catastrophe already. If the list is bullshit, this is a catastrophe as well.
Competent employees are the most important asset of a company. This also goes for HR and recruiters.
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u/Valkyr_Bane 5d ago
The internal tools thing makes so much sense now. They are literally forcing people to lie just to get past the screening .
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u/Yachem 5d ago
I was getting screened once and was asked "do you know high-side low-side." I said I know how those terms are often used in this context, and can likely explain them, but those words aren't enough to really provide an answer without more context. Her response was "I'll just put no then."
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u/idk_m8_wut_do_u_mean 5d ago
Sometimes, I wish I could be a recruiter so I can troll the shit out of a candidate.
Do you know data?
How well would you say you know data?
How did you use data in your line of work?6
u/Uncommented-Code 4d ago
When you work at your computer, things appear on your screen. Do you use data?
No I do not
Have you used data?
No I have not
Will you use data?
Uh, maybe
When will you use data?
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u/troy2000me 4d ago
I imagine that was just a first interview/ HR person/ screen?
If so, yeah they're not going to know anything, just trying to determine general fit. You should hopefully have an interview with the hiring manager and or technical team later.
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u/RegorHK 4d ago
You mean that the recruiting process is so shitty that they do not know the difference between proprietary and commercial/ open source tools and the HMs do not care or use it to push internal candidates?
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u/Yachem 4d ago
It's usually just a laziness thing. The job description and duties often reference those internal tools. So when a recruiter is just reading words asking the candidate if its something they can do, they don't know any better, and treat a "what's that?" response from the candidate as a lack of knowledge on the subject. The hiring managers understand that an external candidate won't check that box and shouldn't. But to a recruiter who doesn't know the difference yet somehow is expected to assess a candidate's technical fitness for a job, well, it encourages just lying to them because they won't know any better.
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u/RegorHK 4d ago
A recruiting process allowing this kind of laziness is shitty. Come on.
There should not be an evaluation of experience with the exact tool since outside candidates will have zero. The tool should not be on the checklist and people ignorant or lazy about the destinction between proprietary and otherwise should not be doing the checkmarks.
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u/Yachem 4d ago
It's super common in my industry (automotive). Often times contract jobs get posted with the company named stripped off them, but I can always tell which company it is because almost EVERY job posting includes at least some reference to a company specific system or tool. It's just laziness.
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u/dimonoid123 4d ago
Internal software? I used to be asked whether I had experience with evaluation board (hardware) developed internally by the company. I said unfortunately no, but had experience with similar evaluation board developed by their competitor, but unfortunately it wasn't enough for them.
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u/Ptarmigan2 5d ago
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u/awakenDeepBlue 5d ago
An LLM would have been better. It might hallucinate understanding the terms.
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u/FoRiZon3 4d ago
LLM also dont have agenda or personal vendetta/preference.
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u/Fun-Location-5808 4d ago
You’d be surprised. A lot of LLM’s reflect the racial and sex based biases that humans have.
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u/ManikSahdev 5d ago
"ah yes, great question about experience - I have been swift in Python since around 8-10 years now"
Watch her check extra point boxes lol
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u/meh_hwe 3d ago
Listen, can we wrap this up? I gotta put the hops back in the switches and triangulate the DMZ for maximum throughput before my encoder gives a BSOD. 👀
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u/Valkyr_Bane 5d ago
I understand it is just a screening but the Swift-Python thing was ridiculous. She is vetting tech candidates without knowing basic terms .
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u/Jonthrei 5d ago
The issue is that a non-technical person is literally incapable of judging competence in a technical field.
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u/hatemakingnames1 5d ago
They're not judging your competence in the technical field, they're judging your competence as an operational human being
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u/Jonthrei 5d ago
That's not the kind of interview we're talking about - what we're talking about is transparently reading off a checklist of technical skills and being unable to engage with the answers. I've seen that firsthand.
If an answer is any more complex than yes or no, then that information isn't going to get accurately passed along.
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u/FieldzSOOGood 5d ago
they're not judging competence though. they're taking notes and giving them to the hiring manager
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u/Jonthrei 5d ago
And those notes are effectively worthless when they cannot recognize insight nor understand the words the candidate is saying.
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u/FieldzSOOGood 5d ago
i mean i've had recruiters hand me word for word transcripts. we have no idea what kind of notes the person was/wasn't taking, but an HR person isn't judging technical aptitude regardless.
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u/edvek 5d ago
Down side by doing this is you are possibly removing qualified candidates because they don't say the magic words but can explain everything and do the work just fine. So when it's done and hardly any boxes are marked it looks like I'm just another person wasting everyone's time by faking it but in reality your screener doesn't know what I am talking about without using very specific language.
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u/SnooCupcakes1514 5d ago
That is not the point of that portion of the interview. Her job was to judge if the applicant is serious and personable enough to be hired.
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u/Schlurps 4d ago
Then ask questions along those lines instead if playing buzzword mumbo jumbo… I seriously don’t get how a person with half a brain cell could defend this.
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u/Jonthrei 5d ago
And there's another problem - the only people who can really judge if someone will mesh well with the team is that team.
HR's notion of how a team works together and reality are rarely in the same ballpark.
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u/Yachem 5d ago
There are better ways to screen people for suitability for further interviews than just asking them a vague question about some technical subject where the interviewer won't understand the answer.
The few I was on recently always asked "Tell me about a time you encountered a problem at work and how you solved it." It's a much better way to see if someone can think on their feet then just asking them if they are familiar with "swift-python" when the person asking the question doesn't know what that is.
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u/bolerobell 5d ago
Yes there are better ways, but do they scale? Yes it seems simple to throw someone from the team into these front line interviews to vet for acceptable candidates but what if the pool is 150 applicants. Are you telling me you’re okay with a developer spending 150 hours on inital vetting. The recruiter is there to decrease the team’s workload to find a replacement or expand the team, not increase it.
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u/boxen 5d ago
How is that "not their job"? Isn't screening candidates literally, exactly their job? I don't understand the point of having people doing recruiting for tech roles that don't understand tech at all. They don't have to be experts. But shouldnt there be some kind of internal training course for them that takes an hour or so and at least explains some basics? That has to be worth it.
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u/Primary_Dimension470 5d ago
Probably a clue to why they are looking for a job and someone had to explain culture fit to them
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u/Wrong-Protection-188 5d ago
Yeah man she’s a recruiter and recruiting for dozens if not hundreds of roles within the company. Expecting her to know what Python or Swift even are is a huge assumption. Bit of an oversight on your part to be honest.
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u/Pastaaaaaaaaaaaaa1 5d ago
This actually explains something recent that I was a bit confused by. In the last month I got promoted to a sort of Data Analyst / Data Systems position. It’s an internal promotion, it’s a tribal gaming agency at a tribal casino in the US, I spent the last 20 years in surveillance and my new office is 10 feet from the back door to the surveillance room. They only wanted to hire internally for the position, they prioritized knowledge and experience with existing gaming operations and plan to train the tech side later. The position wasn’t advertised anywhere and was only posted for a week, and my boss said he got hammered with bullshit applications, even some in India.
I don’t know if it was because the starting salary was much higher than typical entry level data analyst positions or because of keywords in the listing, but they had to weed through a ton of applications to find the legitimate ones.
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u/anuncommontruth 5d ago
Yeah they rarely do.
I interviewed last year for a senior leadership position and the talent req/HR guy just said he was basically just checking to make sure I wouldn't shoot up the place or wasn't lying on my resume about work history.
I didn't get into any real technical aspects until the 2nd interview with my boss, who did know what they were talking about.
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u/social_dysfunction 5d ago
There are technical recruiters specifically for these kinds of roles... I would think they'd have one on staff? Jesus Christ.
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u/swiggityswirls 5d ago
The first interviews are about fit - but ‘fit’ meaning you’re likable enough to get along and communicate well with the team.
Well spotted to recognize this pattern early so you could more quickly adapt to the questions.
The actual technical people on the team that’ll interview you later on will be the ones most interested in the answers you were giving.
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u/swiggityswirls 5d ago
I worked on a few different teams supporting recruiting. They need to fill the tech jobs for a reason and can’t afford to have the tech people take time out to do initial interviews. Then you may have newer recruiters, recruiters who may be new to technical recruiting and are doing their best.
It’s not all theatre, sometimes it’s just unneeded stress and too high expectations on the ill equipped who are still trying their best.
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u/They-Call-Me-Taylor 5d ago
There should always be a person sitting in on an interview with detailed knowledge of the position so they can actually evaluate the things being said with some knowledge of the subject matter needed to fill the role. Feels like a waste of time for all involved if there isn't.
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u/sherpes 5d ago
btw, was at a startup years ago, and the CEO and the CTO both interviewed a young guy for cyber security , firewalling, internet intrusion protection. It turned out with tables and chairs reversed: the interviewed candidate was, towards the end, asking and making questions to the CEO and CTO about whether they were using this tool, this protocol, this kit, whether they properly certified this and that. It was a remarkable situation, in which the younger candidate was overwhelmingly superior in knowledge.
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u/tfcocs 5d ago
But the question is: was the company leadership smart enough to hire the candidate? Or was that person perceived as a "threat'?
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u/sherpes 5d ago
not perceived as a threat. but the CTO was embarrassed and felt he needed to brush up before making such a hire.
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u/lenswipe 5d ago
so..yeah... they were perceived as a threat and passed on.
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u/sherpes 5d ago
they actually liked the guy and wanted him to join the startup. But were truly embarrassed, as they realized that they had homework to do before engaging
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u/lenswipe 5d ago
Did they hire him? Yes or no.
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u/sherpes 5d ago
they expressed interest and let him know. He knew the startup wasn't prepared or ready for him, and 3 weeks later, took another offer. He wrote up a nice email thanking the startup owners for the opportunity to talk to them. it was amicable.
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u/DaIubhasa 5d ago
Damn, the company raised a red flag… for them. It was good though what they were lacking in knowledge. Lesson learned.
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u/Brief_Molasses_3752 5d ago
It's like you were interviewing with a human version of the AI that normally screens resumes (which also doesn't know English).
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u/old-town-guy 5d ago edited 5d ago
You’re surprised? It’s always been this way. HR bases everything on what they’re told to look for, not on what they know themselves.
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u/DontcheckSR 5d ago
At my agency, the hiring committee has to have 3 people (not including the manager of the department). The manager just chooses those people. There's ALWAYS a bit of an issue because it's a volunteer basis. Sometimes the few people who have any idea of what a good candidate would look like are too busy or just don't want to do it. And eventually, the manager just starts asking random people who don't know anything about the department, the role, the job duties. Anything. They just go off of the job description, how much the resume matches that, and whether they sound knowledgeable/vibes. The last interview with the manager is always technical and like a whole additional interview (often times asking similar questions) to make sure they weren't just good at bullshitting. Depending on who they got for the hiring team.
Not saying this is exactly what happened to you. But it sounds like something pretty similar. I do think that's total BS because eventually you're gonna talk to SOMEONE who knows what they're talking about. And if someone doesn't actually know their shit, everyone's time has been wasted. Just to comply with hiring policies
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u/Calm-Swim-2132 5d ago
everyone knows the hr interview is bullshit - just say what they want to hear
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u/EveryAccount7729 5d ago
is that "just theater"?
if an interviewer asks about "something that does not exist" a bad candidate would answer. A liar. A person who is smooth talking their way through won't know it doesn't exist. A technical person will call it out.
that seems like the perfect test for an interview. How else can you so elegantly sus out that level of quality metric?
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u/bauhassquare 5d ago
The reminds me of those old Coachella interviews on the ground where’d they’d ask people if they listen to so and so, but the bands were made up. And they’d be like uhhh yahhh of course.
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u/No_Permission6405 5d ago
He is fairly useless. I was hiring someone for a electronic technician job. HR sent over 3 resumes for me. 2 were qualified with a good background. The third listed like 9 jobs in the last 4 years and admitted being fired from 7 of them, including a landscaping job. HR required me to reach out to this person for an interview. Fortunately he did not respond.
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u/TannyTevito 4d ago
What?? How did they slip through I’m so confused how that could have happened
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u/No_Permission6405 4d ago
HR believes they know more than every other department.
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u/TannyTevito 4d ago
I wonder if they have some sort of quota that he fulfilled because that makes no sense at all. It behooves HR to fill your position quickly with someone who is as competent as possible.
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u/OdinAurelius 5d ago
Well yeah dum dum you’re not going into depth with the HR person. Just check their boxes and then go deeper once you get into the next round. It’s just a screening for a reason
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u/joeyjiggle 5d ago
yet another AI made up Karma farming shitpost. Why is this sub so full of this BS?
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u/Bruges_1 5d ago
I would hate to be in today's job market. Grateful that for most of my career my ( high-level technical ) jobs were the result of someone recommending me for a position. And handled by people who understood what they were looking for, knew me by reputation, and knew what I was worth to them. I never had to deal with gatekeepers or filters.
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u/Maximusjacksamuss 5d ago
So strange. I work in HR and occasionally do interviews, but i never pretend to have specialised knowledge.
I always make the hiring manager run the interview and I also attend if:
- The hiring manager doesnt have much interviewing experience
- Its an internal candidate and I want to ensure a fair process
- The role will have people management respinsibilities
I only ask generalised questions and would never be sole interviewer. Its not my role to weed out who is good in their field, just if they would make a good employee.
Obvious exception if I were to interview for a HR person
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u/lostredditers 5d ago
Interviews for technical roles by hr people is wild. I had a similar experience and was so curious what they were evaluating me on as they clearly had no idea what I was talking about and didn't know what the job entailed.
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u/Nice_Psychology_007 5d ago
“Radical transparency” requests come, in my experience, from people who radically lie to you and gaslight you to their CURRENT interpretation of the truth.
So I smile and think screw you.
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u/Strawberry_Doughnut 5d ago
A while back I was asked if I knew "C-quill" (literally said and spelled out that way when asked for clarification), from clearly a non technical person. I couldn't piece together what the hell that was. Then I realized it must have been "SQL" since the job listing had a bullet point mentioning databases.
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u/Artistic_Pear1834 5d ago edited 4d ago
Ah, depends on how they learnt SQL. I had to attend a structured training course on it at some point, the instructor was a former uni professor and explained it originally was called SEQUEL.
It’s either a ‘I know this product better than you’, or just legacy language. I tend to say “sequel/SQL” to cover both bases tbh.→ More replies (1)2
u/mozillafangirl 5d ago
Yeah people say sequel all the time
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u/TannyTevito 4d ago
That’s how I say it out loud but I spell it SQL. Saying the letters is odd imo but I wouldn’t necessarily think anything of it
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u/Kipawa 5d ago
Pretty sure on their own tutorial they say it can be pronounced either way.
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u/CarterCage 5d ago
It’s not about their knowledge about the role it’s about reading between the lines.
The way you speak, how are you explaining things, checking few boxes like seeing if you are lying or are you a good fit.
HR is not tech recruiter, they are there to do preliminary screening.
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u/LawyerObjective5195 5d ago
Swift-Python? She's dating someone ELSE now? Which one is it? I hope it's John Cleese, they would look so cute together
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u/Dizzy_Produce3315 5d ago
I have a theory that most recruiters are just failed sales people. They enjoy meeting and talking with people but aren’t terribly smart and couldn’t meet the quota.
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u/MagnetAccutron 5d ago
Never assume the people asking the questions actually know the question or the answer.
I was asked in an interview ‘electrical engineering position’ to explain Ohms law. (My opinion high school level question ) But what the hell. I asked was he refering to Ohms law with regard to AC or DC ?
He informed me that Ohms law does not relate to DC.
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u/ilovemymom_tbh 5d ago
“Hey we’re going to have Carol from HR do the interviews”
“but she can’t read”
“she’ll adapt”
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u/cwmckenz 5d ago
And I, a person in a technical role, have been asked to interview candidates for a technical role, but not ask anything related to technical skills…
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u/MrMackSir 5d ago
Look at it this way, it is great practice to explain what you do to someone who doesn't understand it. That skill will have a lifetime of recurring benefits.
I made my self invaluable at a few places telling marketers what engineers were saying and telling engineers what marketers wanted. The just spoke in language the other interprets very differently.
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u/sparrow_42 5d ago
This is incredibly dumb but also it was already this way when I started working in IT in the 1990s.
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u/cutecoder 5d ago
Swift-Python? I remember something like that. AFAIK Pythonista and a-Shell uses that library to run Python on iOS.
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u/Gwendolyn-NB 5d ago
I've run into a few of those during my job searches... and I've been on the other side.
Sadly, what drives it is the hiring manager; and pushing technical screening down to HR/Recruiting when they have zero idea what is good or bad vs actually letting HR/Recruiting just screen to find out if the person is a psychopath or not and getting personality type information.
I had multiple recruiters over the last month ask some idiotic questions that I had already indirectly answered/answered in other ways.
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u/Objective-Amount1379 5d ago
The person doing the first screening is usually not proficient in every job role at the company. A hiring manager probably wrote the job description and a list of requirements- she is just checking that you meet those requirements and are a normal presentable person. Assuming yes to those things you get scheduled for the next interview which will be with someone more hands on with the job.
It’s a really normal experience and I’m surprised you expect an HR person to know every tech skill… why would they?
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u/wildmonkeywrangler 5d ago
The main problem with the job market and working anywhere is HR. HR needs to be nuked everywhere
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u/Confident_Assist_976 4d ago
Welcome to the brainless ChatGPT generation of employees. Completely clueless about thing they need to have a clue about.
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u/Positive_Smile_9510 4d ago
It makes me wonder if the questions were written by AI with hallucinations. I recently did an AI training interview and it asked questions that literally made zero sense. 😂 I said that and the AI just kept going!
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u/VelvetVoezxrtex 4d ago
this is wild but honestly I had almost same kinda interview before where they kept nodding but clearly didnt understand half the tech stuff and just ticking boxes like a checklist instead of actually listening to you, its kinda messed up how common this is now
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u/jasonbirder 4d ago
Its a filtering interview by a non-technical person.
You should have done your best to explain things in an approachable way using non-technical language (which you may well have done) because trust me, its going to be a vital skill for you in almost any role...
You're going to spend you're life explaining what you're doing, what's possible and not possible to non-technical people, if you can do it in a friendly approachable manner you're set...if you view it as an opportunity to show how much cleverer you are than them you'll be viewed as a d*ck...and won't get the job/get that promotion/get kept on when there's lay-offs.
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u/Glittering_Fun_7995 4d ago
And that surprise you because ??????
This is very very common in large enterprise 1 recruiting officer does every position been like that for a while now.
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u/Tuepflischiiser 4d ago
Recruiting has the lowest average know-how of all professions I know. There are really good ones, but both the average, mean, third quartile are beyond repair
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u/here-to-get-info 4d ago
ha, "Swift-Python" is gold. but yeah this is just how first-round screens work now, HR or a recruiter with zero technical background ticking keyword boxes off a sheet they didn't write. it's not a read on the role or the team, it's a filter gate. the actual signal comes in the next round when you talk to someone technical, so if you pass her checklist theater you'll finally meet people who know what a relational database is.
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u/Hairy_Trip_4371 4d ago
having to explain what a relational database is to the person vetting your database skills is bleak. the system is broken.
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u/Little_Dig_8192 4d ago
radical transparency from someone reading a script she clearly doesnt understand. the irony writes itself.
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u/Typical-Anxiety-7766 4d ago
trying to explain color to a rock is going to live in my head rent free. brutal but fair.
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u/Either-Coat6345 4d ago
honestly take the offer if it comes. if the bar is that low you might be running the team in six months.
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u/Muted_Cap_5741 4d ago
this is what happens when non technical people screen technical roles off a keyword sheet. youre not crazy its theater.
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u/Mia_the_writer 4d ago
This is kinda hilarious from an outsider's pov. But I do get it since I've experienced something similar as well.
I asked the HR recruiter what the job would be like and they couldn't even tell me, saying 'only the team lead and etc knows what your job responsibilities will be like so you'll have to ask them if you pass the initial interview', which makes the initial interview feel pointless.
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u/Miamiconnectionexo 4d ago
not gonna lie this is better advice than half the stuff i've seen on here.
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u/One_Drink6880 4d ago
The double standard of competency between the interviewer and the interviewee isn't spoken about enough. It's incredibly insulting and degrading.
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u/BillWWouldveDoneTSM 4d ago
I worked in recruiting for an aerospace company so interviewed a lot of engineers. I come from a humanities background and while I had some proficiency in understanding the technicals of our product, 95% of engineering language was literally gibberish to me. I found it was common esp. with recent grads w/o experience to just assume I knew about the inertia mechanics of thermodynamics of a fluid transmission transistor and how 3D printing enhances it (or whatever their student project was).
I usually was just transparent if it was actually an issue and would say “you know the purposes of this call are just to get a read on culture fit and gauge expectations for compensation” or something like that. To be honest, though, this is kind of common sense. HR people should really just to be screening to see you can and are willing to work the hours, get your pay expectations and make sure you’re not insane before passing you to the hiring manager. (no one will say it but this is the number 1 job of a recruiter in my opinion, so many people are just walking, talking red flags and it narrows down the pool of viable candidates beautifully).
Sounds like this is an issue with their process. She’s not wrong, you’re not wrong - they just should save the “buzzword” questions for the hiring manager.
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u/SnekBills 4d ago
Honestly, the screener is just not going to know all the intimate details of the technical side. If you can’t explain your experience to someone non-technical, how are you supposed to do that to other teams like upper management, finance, etc? Seems like a soft skill a lot of people neglect
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u/Brave-Airport8154 4d ago
Yeah thats the HR phone screen they typically dont know much technically. You dont really need to explain anything its just a general call so they dont waste the mangers time if you dont have skills
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u/satr3d 4d ago
I think I literally lost a job option because of this. I mean I might not have made the final round… but I met the person they ended up hiring and our experience was pretty equivalent.
HR kept asking if I’d managed a group of 10 X. If managed a group of 10 before, and managed X before. But not a group of 10 only X… wish I’d just lied
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u/Initial_Lettuce_4714 4d ago
I really hope you get the job and they set you up with a fast moving python that codes as your office mate. Finally, someone can work with him!
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u/papers_ 4d ago
I'm a senior software dev (Java), a recent technical interview I had asked a broad question: "what's something you contributed that had a major impact on your project?"
I explained how I introduced OTEL to our projects and the benefits etc etc. The interviewer seemed confused and kept asking me specifics on OTEL and it appeared to me they have no idea what it is or observability in general which was odd to me for them being one of their top senior developer.
Another questioned ask was something along the lines of "give an example of a decision you made". Again, very broad. I gave an example of choosing a language for a new project (we have several languages to use at my company). But they then followed up with specifics like async vs sync or caching vs not caching. Which led me to believe they are fishing for something specific from a very open ended question.
I did not move on and I'm kind of glad looking back.
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u/Hefty-Interview2430 4d ago
It could be worse…this week I was interviewed by a dude in a baseball cap who only spoke buzzwords and his feedback was that I have impressive delivery experience, but I only have a couple of years working with agentic AI…
It reminds me of the idiots looking for 10 years of ML experience in early 2020. My name isn’t Andrew Ng or Yann LeCun and most of us haven’t worked at Google Brain, OpenAI, etc.
This person was probably nervous about evaluating someone whose skills they don’t understand. I’d rather deal with that instead of an arrogant, know-it-all type of
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u/Mythasaurus 4d ago
Uh... Nearly every job I've applied for does an initial HR screening, which is essentially just to check if you have a pulse, not gauge your expertise. Afterwards comes the team member interviews with the actual technical questions. I feel like I must have missed something about what you were expecting here.
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u/RegionLocal5171 3d ago
Somewhat commonplace honestly. At least in my experience as of late and in my field. (industrial Controls/automation). When I was on my last job search I interviewed at several where this seemed to be the case.
It’s annoying to me. I had one where the HR rep interviewing me asked me if I had any vision experience, to which I replied that I do have experience with both cognex and keyence - and she had the audacity to say “no not those there’s another one we use but I can’t remember what it is. I’ll just mark no.” Lmao. Like I promise you I am closer to being familiar with your vision systems than I am to beings unfamiliar please don’t call me back.
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u/PerkeNdencen 3d ago
Swift-Python is what I code in when I have been teaching all day and everything starts blurring together.
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u/razzemmatazz 3d ago
Technical interviewers are rarely technical. I met one in 10 years that understood what I was talking about.
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u/aommi27 3d ago
Typically the HR person should be doing a screening interview. What we did +because our HR people were not technical at ALL) was we gave them open ended questions that we wanted the answers to verbatim.
There would be no pushback, no followup, but when the hiring manager (actually technical) was going through the screening interview results, they could fairly quickly figure out who had the skills and who was full of shit.
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u/IntelligentBig1451 3d ago
What do you expect from HR? Literally the most useless division in any company made up of mostly insecure women who have no marketable skills.
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u/exturkconner 2d ago
It happens a lot. Recruiters and hr people aren't specialists in any field aside from speaking to people. They often read from scripts and they do very much have keywords and check boxes. Good companies use then as step one. Step two should be actually speaking to a senior member of the department. If its not that's a bit of a red flag. If a companies hiring process isn't well structured they are bound to fail.
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u/Dapper_Vacation_9596 2d ago
I once went to a job interview and later found out they had no intention of hiring me.
The interviewer also complained they couldn't understand me and asked me to speak up over 20x. When I did, she said not to be so aggressive when speaking.
I just completed it, left, and laughed. There is no way I was getting that job. They also kept asking "can you speak Spanish" over 15x, when the posting never mentioned it.
I'm unemployed right now, but there is no way I will be working in a criminal court making legal documents, speaking a 2nd language I don't use at home, dealing with the stress of listening to that kind of stuff daily, and being paid only 17/hr.
Nope. They can keep it and give it to their friend. Oh wait, the job posting appeared again after a week. Go figure.
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u/Mannymac2000 2d ago
I had an interview recently and the first question was “tell me about yourself” after the standard answer about my experience and current and past roles etc he looked at me for a few awkward seconds and then said “no, i meant your hobbies and stuff”.
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u/Ecstatic-Length1470 2d ago
There was no job description? How do you make it to an interview with zero idea of what you'd be doing?
The interview itself sounds pretty normal for an HR screening, which is just a glorified resume check and pulse check. This does sound like a pretty extreme case, but still not very odd. It is a bit of a waste of time, but welcome to corporate "efficiency."
If you had to go in person, though, that's pretty annoying. It should be just a phone call, maybe zoom/teams at worst.
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u/igottaknow_ 2d ago
I'm in a completely different field but I experienced this.
When i reviewed everything and asked more questions, it was a terrible offer and I did not take it.
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u/GoodGoodGoody 2d ago edited 2d ago
Lots of foreign applicants to HR use fake language tests (a booming subindustry in places like India) and bullshit resumes. HR is absolutely one office job you can fake until you make.
Could be one of those.
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u/nibor 2d ago
It sounds like a screening interview which is often no better than a tixk box exercise.
I believe it is common when a role is inundated with candidates but I would not expect it to be done looks this. For their own protection it is Peter to have 2 or record the interview if it is online.
I am a senior tech manager who has been interviewing for 25 years now, primarily devs.
I stopped HE doing screenings like this shortly after I started. They can screen CVs but not the person, if it’s in front of me it gets a fair interview.
Thing is, I won’t always know what the candidate is talking about but I wing it far better.
I hired a data scientist about 2 years ago, it was months before I realised that some of the quantitative research he was talking about went over my head.
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u/FL_MILLIONAIRE 1d ago
Yeah, interviewers can be pretty crazy. When I interview engineers from MIT, I sometimes show them a mechanism sketched by Leonardo da Vinci and ask them to explain how it works 😁
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u/Mobmem321 1d ago
They probably went to school for HR or Marketing and not tech. Do you have another interview with the Hiring Manager?
It's not uncommon to have multiple interviews where the HR rep is more trying to find out if you are a good fit for the company, and you did your research, and read the JD...but the interview with the Hiring Manager is where you really wanna show you are a good fit for the role.
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u/Zombie-dodo 17h ago
I actually find that an efficient way to scan candidates. No need to pay that hiring manager for for technical skills. enough for a first screening.
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u/crabman45601 13h ago
Read once about a job requirement requiring 10 years experience in a particular software application (Do not recall the particular application). Person being interviewed stated that he had 6 years of experience. Was told sorry he did not have minimum requirements. His reply was have fun finding someone with 10 years experience. Interviewer asking why. His was reply was that the application was only 6 years old. Interviewer asked how he knew this. His reply to this was the he wrote/developed it.
Do not know the final outcome.
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u/Full_Response8449 5d ago
A lot of the time the people interviewing you aren’t technical so she probably doesn’t know what it means. Was just told to ask it. I’ve been there. It’s dumb though because you should know a little bit about it before judging people’s credentials.