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Old 02-11-2016, 09:40 PM
 
1,188 posts, read 956,487 times
Reputation: 1598

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This was for a technical position at a lucrative firm. After 2 phone interviews, this one was onsite.

It started out normal. Met the recruiter (attractive woman) at the reception desk on one of their floors of the skyscraper, got a temporary badge, was given a schedule of 5 45-minute time slots and the names of the individuals I would be talking to during each of those time slots. Each of the individuals had their own office, so I was moving from office to office, sitting in the chairs facing these individuals at their desks.

The first 2 interviews went well. We had no trouble using up all the time talking and I felt like I gave excellent answers to all the technical questions and was given validation that they liked my answers.

Then comes the 3rd guy. Things started to go awkward with this guy. He didn't have any prepared questions, seemed to rapidly improvising a bunch of Programming Religion-type questions (my thoughts on certain styles of programming), wasn't really giving me any indication of whether or not he liked my answers. 30 minutes into the 45-minute interview, he kinda hurries me out and says we've gone past our time limit and that the next guy is ready for me. For whatever reason, he clearly had enough of me.

At this point I'm thiking that I might as well leave since I have been vetoed by guy number 3. In fact, I'm thinking they might show me the door now. Nonetheless the recruiter doesn't give me any indication that the interview is going wrong (I looked closely for any type of implicit signals between her and guy number 3 after the interview with him). Maybe this guy just hates interviewing people and wanted to get back to work.

I go into the 4th guy's office and the interview goes alright. Nice guy, general questions.

I go into the 5th guy's office. Nice, chill guy, doesn't tell me what type of role he plays in the department, but I later learn that he's like the main engineering manager. First question he asks me is, "So what did you think of our interview process? Do you think it was fair?" I told him that I had no idea overall and I hint at the fact that I don't think the interview with guy 3 went well. He gives me brief summaries of the roles of each of the people I met with and what their areas of expertise are. This somehow diverges into a tangent about his life story and management philosophies and new directions that the team is going. It was the strangest thing ever. At one point he was talking about how he's planning to cancel his cable television because there's enough entertaining stuff to watch on Youtube and how he likes to send the team funny Youtube videos that he finds. At another point he opens the blinds to show me what an awesome view he has from his office. We didn't really talk about the job at all. I chimed in occassionally to keep the conversation going.

Completely normal exit from the interview. I give my badge back, the recruiter asks if they need to validate my parking, tells me they'll get back to me in a couple days and to have a good rest of the week.

What can I make of this? To me, it went by so fast, was all a big blur. Why I thought it was strange is that the interview went south with guy 3 but seemed to recover. Is it possible to recover from a bad portion of a long interview?
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Old 02-11-2016, 10:28 PM
 
117 posts, read 129,183 times
Reputation: 268
Well, ever since the GlitteringPrizes (jobs) got scarce, you never can tell how an interview went.

Any "keep America white" chit chat in the 5th phase?
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Old 02-12-2016, 10:07 AM
 
6,600 posts, read 8,946,790 times
Reputation: 4683
It's really impossible for us to know. The 3rd guy could have disliked you for whatever reason, or he may just have poor interviewing/conversing skills. He may have a rep as being "off" at the office and people know he comes off strange but he knows his stuff so they don't care too much. If you got 4 of 5 people to like you and the 5th is a maybe then I think you're in a pretty good position. Only time will tell though.
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Old 02-12-2016, 10:11 AM
 
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,938 posts, read 36,834,525 times
Reputation: 40634
Doesn't seem all that unusual to me, to be honest. Three of four gave a decent interview, that's pretty good for most places. The fifth was a person just getting a feel for you and making pleasant convo, also not unusual.
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Old 02-12-2016, 10:16 AM
 
29,472 posts, read 22,480,143 times
Reputation: 48167
Shouldn't have hinted about the third interview not going so well. Always stay positive.

That said anything can happen.
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Old 02-12-2016, 10:32 AM
 
2,007 posts, read 2,895,772 times
Reputation: 3129
they get the "weird" people to do interviews all the time at my work. It says something about the candidate if they can converse with anyone, get along with anyone. Another trick-They get a secretary to do an interview to see if the candidate treats everyone, high or low on the totem pole, with respect. this is at a Fortune 100
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Old 02-12-2016, 10:34 AM
 
Location: NYC
16,061 posts, read 26,692,634 times
Reputation: 24848
Let us know what happened! The third guy could just be quirky, you don't know. I agree with Suburban Guy, shouldn't have said anything negative, even hinting about him. Positive, positive, positive!
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Old 02-12-2016, 10:41 AM
 
16,235 posts, read 25,147,660 times
Reputation: 27047
Maybe the third guy was a test. I wouldn't worry about having been honest, it might be a positive. Last guy sounds pretty quirky too. Keep this in mind if you get an offer.
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Old 02-12-2016, 12:09 PM
 
17,815 posts, read 25,574,545 times
Reputation: 36267
This is why I prefer a panel interview. I used to think they were intimidating, but the fact is they're better in the long run.

You're not spending all day usually getting asked the same questions from 5 different people. And they can also compare notes on you and sometimes that can clarify something that seems unanswered. For example one person thinks you didn't answer a question(because they weren't paying attention) and someone else can say "no, this is what they said".

Good luck, OP. Sounds like it was a long day.
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Old 02-12-2016, 12:14 PM
 
9,349 posts, read 8,264,379 times
Reputation: 19075
This doesn't sound that odd to me. I've been interviewed before by people who just LOVE to talk about themselves, their careers, their rise to the top, blah blah blah. It actually works to your advantage to get people to talk about themselves, most people come away thinking "Wow, this guy/gal was really interested in me, I'd like to work with him/her!"

I also agree with someone earlier, don't speak poorly about any of the other interviewers no matter how awkward they were. "Everything was great, everyone is really helpful and friendly." should have been your response to that.
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