Ask HN: How do you deal with rude interviewers?
I've had an interviewer laugh in my face when I told them my favorite language was Scheme.
Then they just walked out in the middle of the interview without saying a word when it wasn't going well, leaving the other interviewers to continue without them.
At the time I didn't say anything, and just continued the interview as if nothing happened, but in retrospect, I think I should have politely terminated the interview myself, as I don't want to work with rude, unprofessional snobs, but I'm wondering what people here would have done, and how you've faced rudeness during interviews yourself?
472 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 345 ms ] threadYes, do this. Walk. The behavior is unacceptable and tells a terrible story about the company culture.
Perhaps if the remaining interviewers apologized immediately, you could reconsider, but probably not.
>I've had an interviewer laugh in my face when I told them my favorite language was Scheme.
Snirk, I mean, I have started to grow grey hairs. What do you think is the best solution for grey hairs?
>Then they just walked in the middle of the interview without saying a word when it wasn't going well, leaving the other interviewers to continue without them.
You may have not noticed they got told to gtfo.
>In retrospect, I think I should have politely terminated the interview myself, as I don't want to work with rude, unprofessional snobs, but I'm wondering what people here would have done, and how you've faced rudeness during interviews yourself?
Nah, waste their time. Work doubly hard to convince them to hire you. Then if they do offer you the job, you can be polite again and explain that the business sounds awesome with X mission. Lather on how awesome they all are and then say unfortunately you decline have to decline. You felt the interview didn't go well and plan to work extra hard to do better next time.
You're already there, you've spent the time to prepare and get there on time, etc. Might as well get as much benefit from it as you can. So use the time to hone your interviewing skills and deal with the hostility, while knowing full well that you are not going to take the job. But you'll work on making yourself as appealing as possible. And you never know if one of those interviewers will admire how you handled the situation and recommend you to someone else, or you'll come across them in another interview years later.
So yeah, make the best of the situation and use it to your advantage.
Interestingly I was pretty positively voted up on this post. I was nearly +10 at one point, but now I'm in the negatives.
Guess people don't agree?
Curious what they dislike about my post.
edit/ My imaginary points are going downward. Lots of my posts suddenly at 0 points. Guess it's time for a break.
That said, I've had several interviews I'd concluded I wasn't interested quite early in the process. In one case I wrapped relatively quickly, and immediately told the recruiter I was not in the least interested. In another, the situation wasn't hostile, but was so bizzare I continued the interview simply to try to understand what the heck was going on.
It would be extraordinarily rare for an interview to pose a direct threat, so continuing with a viewpoint that the experience is simply practice doesn't hurt. I've also had other staff who'd interviewed me and then left that position contact me with other offers, so from a networking perspective, the experience can still be useful.
There were other opportunities I should have passed on but did not. Having additional options is extraordinarily useful. Those are among my regrets.
Interview was conducted by a recently-hired, recently-graduated (and very fresh-out-of-school) developer.
The business prop just didn't make sense.
After about 15--20 minutes, I was just trying to make sense of the situation / why they were even at the firm.
I watched for further developments from the company for a few years, I'm not aware that anything ever came of it, so at least this one time my sense that this could never pan out was in fact correct.
(Stupid ideas often have a much longer runway than seems remotely possible, especially when money also gets stupid.)
I don't recall the name of the company any more.
They were in search space, and are neither alphabetic or waterfowl-inclined.
Yes, what was so bizarre?
Its ok to continue the interview but its also ok to finish, leave and never return. They're as much under investigation for fit as you are. Hold them to your standards.
You got a glimpse of what working with them would be like in future. I'd say you found them lacking. Can you imagine a code review with that person?
All that assumes that the interviewers' behavior was "just" rude, if the cross line like sexism, racism and similar thing the solution is standing up and leaving. Their is only so much you can learn from abusive people.
I would also suggest this; it signals to the other interviewers that they just lost a potential candidate because of John Doe's behavior. They might take action, but they need to understand the consequence of having that guy on the team, or at least in the interview room.
The interviewer may still tell people that you gave up halfway through, but if anyone else is listening or the interviewer is accidentally honest, it is more likely to trigger change by emphasizing that the company is losing you rather than you are losing the company.
You would waste your own time, too, with this approach.
I was asked to show up at 8am, but I was not told I would not be leaving the office until 6pm.
Also, I was told it was a direct hire - when I got the offer for something like $35/hr in a major city as a mid level programmer, I sorta lost it on the recruiter. No vacation, purely contract work through the recruiter.
More or less lied to during the entire process. I guess some candidates are happy to get a job and just put up with it? It has to work sometimes...
* "We have this amazing CTO / CIO / VP Role."
* "What's the pay range for this role?"
* "We pay market rates"
* "I'm currently making $X at my fancy FAANG role. Can you beat that?".
* "Oh. Nevermind".
It's helped, but there are still false promises made.
Sadly yes and they don't have a choice, but anyone accepting that shit who do have a choice are lowering the standard for everyone else.
I would have had to move across the country and they recently laid off 1000 (50%) of their staff, so in retrospect I figure I dodged a bullet, but wow!
Not a lot you can do about it now.
Let keep the good intent and intellectual curiosity please.
It's easy to write, easy to read, and easily does everything I need. I prize clarity over almost anything else when programming, and Scheme lets me do that way more effectively than anything else. There's very little syntax or boilerplate to get in the way.
It's also very consistent, and I like that.
The worst languages feel cobbled together or congealed rather than designed. Scheme is the opposite of that.
Not being facetious either. it has the same semantics and a lot of python's early adopters were former lispers.
That said, scheme the language is much more powerful than python. in exchange for the easy syntax, python lost macros and took on a crippled lambda syntax.
Though I like that Python takes some inspiration from Lisp, it has a lot of unnecessary complexity and inconsistency which leads to a lot of gotchas.
Python's additional syntax make it less readable and harder to write for me than Scheme. It's only more "beginner friendly" if you're used to Algol-like languages, otherwise Scheme is simpler to understand.
Just my 2c
Still, when given the choice I prefer to work in a language that's easy and clear, rather than one that's painful and convoluted.
Sure, I might be able to do the same in another language, but I'm reminded of Alan Perlis' advice to "Beware of the Turing tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy."
What's so incomprehensible about this?
Of course if you do a half-assed job all the time, you may afford to not care about your tools. I want to excel at mine, so I definitely have preferences.
But I couldn't tell you my favorite language, it doesn't really make sense to me.
>The tools we use have a profound and devious influence on our thinking habits, and therefore on our thinking abilities.
Obviously you should use the right tool for the job, however in the realm of programming languages someone might find a language's model of code structure better than other languages and more in tune with his/her way of thinking.
For many people, programming language and compiler/interpreter design is one of the major parts of computer science that they are interested in. Language development is an entire subfield of computer science on it's own!
Languages are a lot more deeply complex than what they may appear on the surface, and choosing a specific one for a specific task is also a little more complicated than choosing a nail vs a screw, with the tradeoffs not always being so clear cut and there being many more factors and "dimensions" at play. Style is also a big part of it, with some people just preferring certain styles and opinions more than others.
I think we would be better off having core business rules in one of these languages instead of having to rewrite them every decade or so in the current fashionable language.
I have terminated politely some interviews that didn't sit right to me in the past.
Something along the line of saving everyone's time and that I don't see myself a good fit at the present time.
It's like a date gone wrong, you're not paid to be there neither to fake for approval. If it's not a good match, let the seat for someone else and find your own elsewhere; respectfully of course as the industry is small enough that another interviewer in that room might be a future colleague.
You're there to show that you're a professional, so that's how you act at all times.
If you decide the company isn't a great "cultural fit" then you can politely and professionally move on.
Same with leaving a job in general. As soon as you decide to go there's no reason to not be as polite about it as possible.
This was a long time ago, and they were a very small startup. Odds are you haven't heard of them. It's definitely not any of the big names.
Mainly you want to leave a good impression on the other people in case you meet them elsewhere in the future and only show a lot of initiative fixing something like that if you are being hired in a role that actually focuses a bit on those soft skills.
Personally, I once got far too involved in discussions with HR at a place where it clearly wasn't going to work out and they are high enough volume that it never mattered.. but I would prefer to have practiced the skills of never showing my hand and continuing along to learn more about their part of industry.
"Before we wrap up, can I ask a few questions?"
(No interviewer, rude or otherwise, has turned this down on me)
"I just want to say this is as much as an interview for you to evaluate me, as it is for me to evaluate you. What do you think could have been improved in our interview for the future?" - if you feel they were especially rude/arrogant: "Do you feel you have conducted this interview professionally?"
When they directly insult you during the interview, that should be the end. If you're willing to tolerate abuse during the interview process, you should expect the culture to persist and you advertise that you're okay with it.
Respect of my time and the time of those around me is important to me. I had a recruiter that didn't understand this concept. He was representing a major media company that seemed like it'd be interesting to work for. But since the recruiter advertised to me that he couldn't care less about my time, I took that as an ongoing issue at the company and I ended the process.
It's just not worth it, especially when you have other potential opportunities that may still be interesting. Respect is important and if they can't respect you at the interview, they will not respect you in the job.
One can arrive at that place earlier in life, and will given mentors and a robust set of early experiences.
And the crazy thing is, knowing that power dynamic means you can, likely, command more compensation.
The interview process should be a conversation, not an interrogation.
If it isn't, I probably don't want to work there.
I think the worst interview process I've been through is when I did 8 interviews at a company, 6 of which were technical, and then was not hired (overqualified apparently...I'm old enough to start encountering ageism and all that). Such a monumental waste of time.
If time comes up, I let them know I have the time needed and would not have asked if I didn't.
Do they have the time needed? If not, why?
Answers to that can make sense and can bias the session toward a more productive exchange.
And leaving when the "interview wasn't going well", makes me picture OP struggling at the whiteboard and somebody not wanting to interrupt him. Sometimes people have to leave. To me, this fits into the category of devs often being unthinking rather than actively rude, and those are completely different categories to me.
I feel like we too often ascribe malice to people for what are often just cultural differences.
They were interrupting me constantly during the whiteboarding. That was actually one of the other things I didn't like about the team. They wouldn't give me time to fully answer their question before butting in and telling me how they would do it. Half the time I felt like they were solving it for me. When I expressed my dismay they told me they didn't actually want a solution from me but were just trying to determine whether they could work with me or not, because that's how they came up with solutions at their company.
In any case, they clearly had no problem with interrupting me. So when the person who had laughed at me later just got up and walked out during the interview (after the whiteboarding) without saying a word, it did seem kind of rude.
I've been in lots of interviews throughout my life, and never once did anyone act remotely like this.
Of course, I could have misinterpreted them, and maybe their laughter was good-natured (it seemed condescending to me). Maybe they had some good reason to leave in the middle of the interview, but they could have just excused themselves.
I had good feedback too! It was a sort of take on a sorting/search problem with a ton of inserts if I recall. Each loop I had, I was reallocating the size of the array by 1 or so. They pointed out, hey, we actually know the size up front right? Let's just allocate the perfect amount right up front.
The better other interviews I had weren't whiteboarding as much as talking through a problem. One is the famous "Urinal Algorithm". you walk into a bathroom with 10 urinals. Where do you stand? No right or wrong answer there. Now you walk in as a second person.. where do you stand?
A second was a sort of "Whats the minimum number of steps you can take to determine where an element is in an array?". you know getting 'hotter/colder' like the kids game, but you can jump around. It's not stated in all algorithmic terms, but you can figure it out with a bit of grasping around and its important for me to see someones process than it is to memorize an algorithm.
it forces a junior person to think through a problem, with some guided help and as a more senior person now, i see that's more valuable in assessing if a junior person can fit in with your style of teaching.
I would say that has a certain logic, too and maybe all in all you were just not a good fit for that company culture. Not that you lacked skills, but simply that your social norms are not compatible with that company (the company seems special, though)
It seems both parties should have ended the interview more early.
I want to address this quote because I’ve been this guy, and I’ve had to train myself out of habits like these. When one acts without thinking the results are often quite rude. Not thinking through your actions and the impact those actions will have on others is itself rude!
Now, I don’t mean to ascribe malice here either, but you can be quite rude without malice. Intent matters, and its worse with malice. But simply being “absent minded” is also rude! Good people acknowledge it, apologize and move on. Some people dig in their heels and won’t concede. YMMV. :)
Once walked out of a big meeting in frustration with a bunch of upper microsoft partners. The head of ops said something like "Well the only guy who actually knows what's going on just left. so the meeting is over" (at a fortune 500).
I was an asshole. the whole team was assholes. We burnt out after about 18 months and 4 acquisitions.
I don't want to be that person anymore
But god damn do other humans make it hard.
The others completely ignored it and acted like nothing unusual was happening... though I did sense that one of them was uncomfortable when the interviewer who had laughed at me just got up and walked out.
Good responses are, on one side of spectrum, they think it's funny and interesting. In the middle (also good responses) they or ask why or politely disagree. On the not so good, they politely disagree but think you're stupid without saying it. Then, out of all those response options, if they pick being rude, then you have a very strong indicator.
If they're discussing alternative music, I say "uh, i like Taylor Swift". If they're discussing cars, I'd say I love minivans ("they're so useful!").
After reading the OP comment, saying my favorite language is Scheme is one I might try when talking programmers haha. In this case, I don't know anything about Scheme, so I'd see their reaction and just say I was just joking.
The person who was rude might have been in a situation where he didn't want to hire someone but was compelled to, so his reaction might have been an unskillful projection of not wanting to go through the process. The others could very well have been mortified to the point of inaction or pretending it didn't happen. There's no way they could justify the behavior of their colleague.
In any case, yeah, it's a sure sign of a toxic environment. That said, if the OP was in the right head-space, he could have used it as an opportunity for humor to take the edge off and help him and the others feel better.
I wouldn't get too hung up on it personally. It sounds like you behaved maturely and kept your cool, that's a desirable trait.
What's important here is you don't react to a bad interviewer unprofessionally by becoming a bad interviewee, producing a high probability of creating no offer at all.
Friction occurs in any professional setting, how you handle it is part of what you bring to the table as a potential employee. Keep your eye on the ball; pursuit of the best offer one can garner.
What you do with that offer is completely orthogonal. Even if you decide in the moment of that bad interviewer being a jerk that you'd never work for the company, there's no reason not to still kill it and discover what compensation you're walking away from. Plus it's just plain good practice at not empowering individuals to negatively affect your behavior/performance.
An event like that is actually a kind of a bonus because you get to see how they handle that, do they think it was bad behavior or are they used to it and expect you to be used to it.
> An event like that is actually a kind of a bonus because you get to see how they handle that, do they think it was bad behavior or are they used to it and expect you to be used to it.
This is not good advice.
Don't squander your interview time on such HR nonsense. You're there to market yourself, it's a first impression type situation where you have the inquisitive attention of multiple stakeholders.
For all you know that guy who's already left the interview process is just a Scheme hater and has basically done everything within his power to obstruct a Scheme enthusiast from finding a job.
Voluntarily squandering more of your interview time on friction he created is not in your best interest, it's just empowering him.
If you later are concerned with offer in hand, you can always have that conversation before accepting. At least that way you've demonstrated an ability to prioritize your use of time appropriately and not simply react emotionally in the moment.
This much is basic human respect you give to anyone in any context.
It's not good advice to suggest any less.
By immediately spending more time on such nonsense you've chosen to give it top priority.
Surely you have more important things to communicate to the remaining interviewers in your interview, than someone else's behavior.
If it's unusual, then they should have no problem saying that and even apologizing. Or do they act like that was fine and why are you such a baby?
Basically the same way I'd react or expect anyone else to react to the same action in any other context.
"What's up with that guy?" or "What was that?" Should be easy enough to answer.
The difference between "We don't know, and we apologize for that." and "What do you mean?" tells you more about the culture than the intial act by that one person.
"Gentlemen, it's clear to me that we're not a good fit here. Let's not waste anymore of our time"
Say it 10 times in front of a mirror or something and just push the mental button when you need to.
"If you find yourself speaking with a person who does not make sense, in all likelihood, that person is not real. Allow the person to finish their thought then provide an excuse why you cannot continue talking."
https://thestanleyparable.fandom.com/wiki/Dialogue#Choice_Vi...
Gentlefolx
For my part, I prefer "amigos" in all but the most formal contexts, except ... that's arguably not gender neutral either.
This is all just flow and it depends on the speaker. Having a bit of a lead in can help some people. Gets in the way for others.
Not sure how that happened.
This is all just flow and it depends on the speaker. Having a bit of a lead in can help some people. Gets in the way for others.
[Not an English native] Isn't that a little too informal? Bugs Bunny came to mind.
Is "ladies and gentlemen" somehow out of fashion?
Some women get pissed at being called a "lady".
It is a minefield, but better than using low English phrases like: "folks", or "guys" (that is a gender neutral slang term in my world)
Always use high English when talking business. Formal language every time.
Fuck the cunts!
"My noble friends"?
"Good people"?
Does not quite feel the same. Perhaps it is my linguistic habits too ingrained
Perhaps have a harsher/rude version in case you see someone not respecting your time and are being rude.
"Folks, it's clear to me that I don't want to work here. I don't want to waste any more of my time".
Such disagreeable situations call for calm and playful assertiveness. You catch the opposite party off guard by politely calling them out and exposing them for being an asshole. You leaving thereafter also strips them of the opportunity to correct their immediate behavior and thus, robs them of a chance to demonstrate that it was, in fact, a misunderstanding. That can be quite frustrating, since most rude people really like to project the veil of being decent human beings and hate the idea of someone thinking less of them.
IMO this effectively terminates all possibilities. IMO it might be more effective to say a break in the convo adding something tailored to what you're feeling/observing.
"I'm getting the sense that something's off here. "
Distracted/Disinterested - "Is there something more pressing you need to attend to?"
Rude - "Can you tell me about your company values and how you treat eachother?"
Superiority - "Can you tell me a bit about how CompanyX mentors and develops new talent?"
etc -- put it out to them assuming the best, but implying you're now interviewing them about their qualities.
They didn't like the not finishing part. I got an email later on saying thanks but no thanks. I asked them if they wanted to see the work they asked me to do. That piqued their interest. They then asked if I was still interested.
I said, "No, I think we are done here."
Assholes are a major red flag. You really need to avoid them. Your life will be much better without them. Look up the companies on glassdoor, search for the people you speak to ahead of time, see if there are any major issues. You'd be surprised at how easy some of these are to find with careful digging. Though you need to be adept at filtering disgruntled people seeking reputational revenge versus specific critiques.
I might make a quick crack like: "Wow. Must be important. Anyhow, let's get back to what we were doing." in order to see what the reactions of others are and whether I get an apology. But I might not. Shrug.
However, the probability of my taking a job there would be close to zero after that. It's just a huge red warning flag.
Well done for being honest and not tailoring your knowledge set to the requirements of the position, like many people do. Often people learn something just because it's advertised fiercely in a company's 'requirements'. This is why I refuse to learn React, Vue, Angular etc because although they're required often, a baseline of HTML, CSS & JS will outlast the new 'soup of the day' framework.
As for the rudeness of the interviewer, I will add that sometimes great developers have terrible people skills, and sometimes those people get put on interview committees. One obnoxious person doesn't necessarily dictate the culture of an entire company. Go with your gut. If the position seems otherwise exceptional and it's just one rude person, consider giving them another shot, and if not, walk--either figuratively, or literally out of the interview.
~20 years later, I should have politely left after one of the sessions. I should have found the hiring manager, told him that "I don't see myself working out well here," and then given much more candid feedback to the recruitment agency.
But also, from that experience, I've learned to guide candidates more if they don't give me the answer I'm looking for. Specifically, if a candidate writes what I think is a sub-optimal solution, I'll say something like "can you make it faster?" or "can you make it more robust?" I never expect a candidate to read my mind the first time, especially if the candidate is feeling overwhelmed.
If I was in your situation, I probably wouldn't have walked out right away. If I was turned off the company, I'd have stayed until a break between sessions. If I was still interested or curious, I'd have discussed this particular employee with the hiring manager or HR rep.
I've only "walked out" of an interview once; it was a phone screen and it very quickly was obvious that I wouldn't be happy there. I told the interviewer that I really liked their product, (I really did,) and I wished them luck. (I really did wish them good luck too.)
My unequal trade,
"The rain, it raineth on the just, And also on the unjust fella, But chiefly on the just, because, The unjust steals the just's umbrella."
edit: I was obviously thinking of "I can only explain it to you. I can't understand it for you." but that appears not to be Feynman either. Oh well!
Seeing an interviewer leave during interview would leave me pretty unfazed as well.
Overall, I wouldn't personally register this interviewer as rude. If it went over my threshold I would have just left.