I had an interview for a job as a Perl programmer in the late 1990s.
At the time I had about three years programming Perl, and I was keen to work in the (at the time) hot area of programming for web sites. I was working in C++ on Windows, fun enough but not as fun as Perl (it was the 1990s)
I prepared carefully for the interview. Making sure I was clear about what I was expert at, what I was good at, and the parts of Perl that I was not so good at. At the interview I started out by carefully detailing all that I was expert and good at, took about five minutes, I thought it would help because if what I was good at was not what they wanted I could get back to work and no harm done....
After my careful exposition the first question the interviewer asked me was: "Can you do object orientated Perl?" Clearly they had not understood a word I said, they were asking questions from a list after waiting for me to finish and I did not want to work for this firm. What a waste of time.
So I decided to see just how much of their time I could waste. I carefully answered all the questions from their list, in as much excruciating and technical detail as I could. I watched them squirm. At the end of the list, there was the pro forma "any questions?". You bet! I had a lot!!
In the end the interviewer was standing behind my chair, not quite physically pushing me out, but clearly very pissed.
I was correct about not wanting the job. Three years later, after the company went broke, I had a contract trying to fix a site they worked on. Where their idea of OO Perl had been An Object for a SQL table, AN Object for Every Row, an Object for Every Value..... A huge mess.
That was my first experience of "HR interview first" using outsourced HR firm. What a waste of money, and a red flag
At the time I had about three years programming Perl, and I was keen to work in the (at the time) hot area of programming for web sites. I was working in C++ on Windows, fun enough but not as fun as Perl (it was the 1990s)
I prepared carefully for the interview. Making sure I was clear about what I was expert at, what I was good at, and the parts of Perl that I was not so good at. At the interview I started out by carefully detailing all that I was expert and good at, took about five minutes, I thought it would help because if what I was good at was not what they wanted I could get back to work and no harm done....
After my careful exposition the first question the interviewer asked me was: "Can you do object orientated Perl?" Clearly they had not understood a word I said, they were asking questions from a list after waiting for me to finish and I did not want to work for this firm. What a waste of time.
So I decided to see just how much of their time I could waste. I carefully answered all the questions from their list, in as much excruciating and technical detail as I could. I watched them squirm. At the end of the list, there was the pro forma "any questions?". You bet! I had a lot!!
In the end the interviewer was standing behind my chair, not quite physically pushing me out, but clearly very pissed.
I was correct about not wanting the job. Three years later, after the company went broke, I had a contract trying to fix a site they worked on. Where their idea of OO Perl had been An Object for a SQL table, AN Object for Every Row, an Object for Every Value..... A huge mess.
That was my first experience of "HR interview first" using outsourced HR firm. What a waste of money, and a red flag