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I would like to share a recent experience of mine and would like to ask your opinion.

I have applied to a position and passed several interviews, especially the one with the hiring manager went really well, I felt like "we have connected on a professional level", he liked my answers and expressed that, and I could see myself working with this person for a long time. Last step was to do a technical interview because I was going to be working with language "x".

The technical interview was scheduled for 30 minutes and it was on video and we were using a website for coding practice.

The details about the technical interview were

  1. Time was not enough, the interviewer was 5 minutes late

  2. He asked me to write a function and I did, the code that he had to check the function did not work because he had typos, spent couple of minutes to fix that

  3. The interviewer asked questions related to how to handle certain version being not supported in the near future and how to solve a problem he has for that day instead of asking questions to assess my knowledge about the language

Right after the interview ended I thought "this was terrible, he could've asked 10-12 different things but he did not!"

Later on I was told I couldn't pass the technical interview.

I have done technical interviews in the past, I know how it's supposed to go. The person on the other side of the table clearly should not be doing interviews, from my experience with him he doesn't know how to do it. Especially for number 3 above he should've asked these after he assessed my knowledge about the language as "extra" questions.

My questions to you guys

  1. Does it worth to ask for reassessment, would they do it?

  2. Should I send this as a feedback, so maybe they can coach the interviewer for future

My gut feeling is they will not be receptive to both

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  • re #3, asking your input on an actual current problem is fairly normal - in the end people are trying to figure out if you are going to be helpful to them, not just if you can complete some sort of abstract technical interview.
    – Chris Stratton
    Mar 1, 2019 at 1:35
  • I wonder if the errors weren't in the code on purpose...Plus I haven't had a technical interview that tested mastery of a language more than adequacy in general problem solving
    – Mars
    Mar 1, 2019 at 1:56
  • Been in this situation a few times, it's infuriating when you know you're good enough but they are too incompetent to assess you properly, but the best thing to do is just move on. They will realise eventually, so you can have your sense of karma then.
    – NibblyPig
    Mar 1, 2019 at 15:02
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    Consider yourself lucky. You just dodged a bullet. You do not want to be working for a company that does not know how to do technical interviews. You really don't. Put your review on Glassdoor. If the company wants to use the feedback they see on there, they'll use it. If the company doesn't want to, they won't. Either way, it will be out of your hands.
    – Stephan Branczyk
    Mar 2, 2019 at 0:06

3 Answers 3

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I think you dodged a bullet there. If they can't organize the code for a technical interview properly, heaven knows what their development process is like.

As to your questions:

  1. I have been offered a second shot at a technical interview twice in the past. However, on both occasions the employer realized they'd screwed up without any prompting from me, so your chances are slimmer if you've got to convince them it was their fault. I took one of them again, but didn't get the job. Wild horses couldn't have dragged me back to the other one; I politely withdrew my application.

  2. You can. However, again, try not to put pride before professionalism. Point out the indisputable facts about what went wrong, and leave it at that. It's not your job to assess the suitability of the interviewer, and having negative things to say about an employee they may value (even if you have no clue as to how or why) is only going to needlessly burn bridges.

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Should I send this as a feedback, so maybe they can coach the interviewer for future

No. You can send them feedback, but stick to the facts. You can give feedback the interviewer was late, and that time was lost because the checking software had typos (but phrase it such away that non technical people can understand).

But don't give as feedback that the interviewer isn't up to the task, or that he wasn't asking the right questions. Stating the the interviewer shouldn't be doing interview is absolute out of order. Any recruiter worth her/his salt will delete that feedback, and put you on the "don't ever bother with this person again" list.

You should keep it professional, and mudslinging isn't part of that.

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It would make sense to give them feedback, expressing you feel you didn't get a chance to show off your full abilities.

They might have a policy around reinterviewing. Most of the times the companies will have a time period of months before they can reassess someone.

Keep in mind if you did work for the company you might have to work with the interviewer. It would make it awkward if they let you reinterview.

Personally if the interview process was that bad I would see it as a red flag and move onto other companies.

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  • Thanks for your reply, there is no way I would work with the interviewer because we would be two different groups. Even though I wanted this job I think it would be better to move on
    – mdem7
    Feb 28, 2019 at 22:42
  • A sensible and complete answer; I gave it a vote. I have always found the idea of giving a technical test or homework at the end of the process to be a bit strange.. I think the test should be used as the first line filter so you are only interviewing people with the demonstrable skills. The "do you fit with the team personally and professionally" interview should come next.. the reverse feels disorganized and kinda "lets do a tech test because its basically a formality that everyone does"... what are they going to learn in a test that they couldnt just ask during a thorough interview?
    – Smitty
    Feb 28, 2019 at 23:19
  • @Smitty To draw more broader picture, the role consisted of having an expertise in areas A and B, I had the first interview to talk about these and nailed it, the next interview was with the hiring manager, that went really well, his last comment was "since you are going to be using language X for this role, I'll have some interview you for that" That part did not go well, I feel like I failed an exam with score 90/100
    – mdem7
    Feb 28, 2019 at 23:37

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