Thoughts Unprovoked Unlimited

Searching for a job - My experience

All views expressed in this post are my own.

There was an interesting disucssion on slashot today (here) , the topic was whether an interviewer should tell the candidate about his shortcomings etc.
Some strategies about approaching job interviews (both as a interviewer and candidate) were discussed. Several people had written about their experiences.
This post would summarize that discussion and give my views too.


Summary of slashdot discussion:
Sure you should give feedback to candidates but be especially careful because any feedback you give would make you liable for potential lawsuits. If you are in tech, it is standard practice to let the hr people handle the feedback part. But from the candidates pov, they would always like some feedback.
No matter what you do, always be courteous because someone who did badly today would either a) become great tomorrow, b)have friends who are great or c)worse still, he/she may end up in management.
You never want bad word to spread that your company is not a good place to work.



My personal interview experience:

We had campus placement interviews in December. I got an offer from Adobe Systems Inc, which luckily was one of the best interview experiences I went through.

But I'll go chronologically,

Day 1: Lehmann Brothers
Now that I look back I think for me this interview went really well (although at that time I thought I had done a blunder). As soon as I entered I was asked what my interests were (and why I applied to the company), when I told them my interests they told me that my interests were quiet contrary to the job profile for which they were hiring. (I was stumped for a sec in the interview). But then the 2 interviewers helped me out. They told me that I was underqualified for the kind of job I was seeking at their firm.
We discussed other jobs (in their firm) where I could apply to and the qualifications for them.

Day 2:
Google:
This was one of the worst experiences ever. The person who was conducting the interviews had am 'I am god' attitude. I had had 2 rounds of interviews after which the interviewers had their lunch break.
During their lunch break, I asked whether they would excuse me (so that I could attend Credit Suisse interview), they agreed and told me it won't be a problem for them.
When I returned they told me that their selection process was over (even though they still were interviewing more people.).
I don't give a rat's ass about this company anymore.

Credit Suisse:
This went really strange. They took a test and the word went out they hired based purely on the test. It was more of an SysAd test (rather than a CS test), so I was kinda shocked that I was shortlisted. The interview went worse. They asked one tech question that made no sense and many hr questions. But the thing I liked is that they wanted to know the reasons, why expected what I expected, why I wanted somethings in life etc. These guys were polite and really professional. They seemed to show that even if you are under qualified now, we don't want to shut the doors on you.

Microsoft IDC:
I have no qualms about this one. They wanted me do some DP design. I just failed miserable. Then they asked me to design an automated code verification and testing algorithm (using pattern recognition methods), I may not have given the best of answers. It was my 6th interview+test of the day and I did not feel like thinking too hard anymore. They understood it and let me go peacefully.

Day 3:
Fair Isaac:
I played my cards here. (I already knew that they were looking for CS people, and CS people were not looking for them). I went for the hr interview first and talked frankly with the hr lady.
She wanted to know the reasons why CS people were not enthusiastic about FI. I told her that the FI package is too low for CS people. I told her that CS biggies like Yahoo!, Amazon and Adobe were yet to come to the campus and nobody would want to commit to FI (esp with the low pay). I had two tech interviews and quickly realized that the interviewers knew very little themselves.
They gave indications that they were ready to increase the pay, and I indicated that I would join them if I actually did.

Day 4:
Yahoo! (I had an exam just before this interview and I missed the Amazon test because of it)
I went in informal clothing. (They said that they were an informal company). The questions they asked were SysAd in nature, running Apache servers etc. (like that's what CS people do). I hardly answered any questions but in the middle the interviewer threw the big one - Whether I was ready to be part of a single project for the next 6 years.
My unenthusiastic answer put the nail in the coffin. I knew I would not get the job but...
He continued with the interview as if nothing wrong had happened. After the interview, the interviewer ventured in Hindi, and then we talked in Hindi for a while about life in general (some 7-8 sentences). So i thought, just maybe I could get an offer.
No problems cause the best was yet to come.

Day 5:
Trilogy:
I hadn't been shortlisted. They called me up in class and said they wanted to interview me. So I rushed to the interview room.
There were 2 rounds of tech interviews. The first round went well, I answered some. Showed some questions as blatantly wrong and failed to answer a few more.
The second round was the one due to which I have a bad opinion of this company.
One of the interviewers had an 'I am God' attitude. The other was lost in his own sweet world.
This 'I am God' interviewer gave me a problem to code. The only algo I could think of was brute force. I think for a while and tell him that I give up and tell him the brute force algo. He looks into his laptop and tells me that the brute force is the best possible algo. (Why the hell do you give it?). Then he asked me to code it. I was having some trouble representing the problems as continous integers (which would have had speeded up the process). This guy tells me to think then looks at his laptop after 10 mins tells me that my representation is correct. Then I started with the C code, I wrote a recursive one. Several such looking into the laptop and finding mistakes followed. Man, if you are really that great why do you look into your laptop?
I was glad I did not get the job.

Day 6 night/ Day 7:
Adobe:
They had 4 kinds of tests. And I got inside information beforehand that I topped it and was the only person who cleared all the cut offs.
I first talked to the hr person again. She explained the nitty gritty details of the company to me. I asked her things I wanted to know. Overall, she got me interested.
Then I had 3 okay rounds of tech. Not great but okay. The people were polite. But four rounds of tech interviews is too much. They ran out of questions pretty soon.
Right before making the offer, one interviewer asked me the question which I was scared of - Symantec Vs Adobe. Which and Why? I mumbled something about creativity at Adobe etc. I really did not have a good answer back then.
They made me an informal offer. I gladly accepted. Formal offer will come soon.
It seems like a good place + its in Noida + they have special programs so that people remain interested + the pay + brand value.

Symantec:
I was shortlisted for the interview. I had an Adobe offer , so I decided to give Symantec the polite pass.


Overall I liked my interviewing experience. I like the offer I have got (My mom and aunt are really enthusiastic about it).


Google and Trilogy may never get my services now. (I would love to see Y! beat the crap out of Google. :) , just hope Yahoo! improve theire service so that as a consumer I can make the switch sooner) I have already started referring my friends and family to try out Credit Suisse. I never was a huge MS fanboy but now the antipathy is a bit less. I hope FI has learned something and will make a better offer to graduating students next year.

posted by aniket @ 4:37 PM