I "did not demonstrate enough knowledge"
Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 8:26 pm
So these guys found me thru the Zend Framework Certification 'Yellow pages' & contacted me requesting phone interviews. I spoke with their system admin and we talked about design patterns, MVC, and we compared the pros & cons of my practice of testing (unit testing) vs his (recorded web tests aka Selenium). We came to the conclusion both solve overlapping but different problems so are both needed. I felt like both of us were learning from each other.
Anyways after much phone interview stuff they had me drive like 100 miles to their Miami office for a 4 1/2hr in person interview. When I showed up they had a different person for each 30 minute block of time, asking the SAME questions each time, me repeating myself. They notated the back of my resume and passed it to the next guy at the end of each 30 minutes, without any opportunity for me to read their notes. The entire time the closest question they asked related to MVC was mentioning "fat model thin controller" and us both agreeing that its "good". No one really asked me to elaborate on why, or list responsibilities of the different tiers in MVC, types of questions I would have asked a potential interviewee.
One of the guys revealed to me it was his first day on the job, and we both laughed that he's interviewing people already. Others interviewing me were warning me about the amount of rush projects, that everything is a rush and they don't have time to "do things right" because projects would get dropped in their lap with deadlines of the end of the day, I told them I had no problem with that and I would in fact try and abstract out the redundant parts with them. During the interview I had the impression that the company was hanging by a string and needed serious help w/ programming & management talent (I of course didn't say that to them, I just smiled and talked about things I think that could help, like writing unit tests for the rush projects, in order to refactor out duplicate code & speed up rush project).
A month after the interview I had not heard back, they followed up wrote they felt I did not demonstrate a good enough knowledge of OOP or MVC (this came from a Human Resources dept I had never communicated with).
Have any of you had such a terrible & offending interview experience? Is this typical of the average interview? I've been running my own company but jeez what a crummy job market if so. I think I'll continue to run my own company. Does anyone here honestly feel I don't "demonstrate enough knowledge"?
Like I'm sure I could learn more, but maybe I did something wrong in the interview? Was I supposed to just go in there and interview myself? Like run the interview myself, just talking and them not asking questions? (instead of answering their questions I could have talked over them reciting MVC knowledge...)
My other gripes were they mislead me about their unit testing practice (the recruiter said "they were using it but needed someone's help", the team said they didnt have the time to do it. The recruiter said yeah of course we have a dedicated QA department, when I showed up there was physically no department, but rather they just send out mass emails to the company before launches, and whoever tests it tests it). So yeah I felt like they mislead me, used up my time and didn't worry about anything but their own needs.
Now there's legit reasons they could have turned me down. No college (they knew it before they requested my time). I have a side company (they knew it before they requested my time). I use & am certified in Zend not Cake which they use (they knew it before they requested my time). I would have been ecstatic to be turned down for any of these reasons but I must admit I feel chewed up & spit out now.
Anyways after much phone interview stuff they had me drive like 100 miles to their Miami office for a 4 1/2hr in person interview. When I showed up they had a different person for each 30 minute block of time, asking the SAME questions each time, me repeating myself. They notated the back of my resume and passed it to the next guy at the end of each 30 minutes, without any opportunity for me to read their notes. The entire time the closest question they asked related to MVC was mentioning "fat model thin controller" and us both agreeing that its "good". No one really asked me to elaborate on why, or list responsibilities of the different tiers in MVC, types of questions I would have asked a potential interviewee.
One of the guys revealed to me it was his first day on the job, and we both laughed that he's interviewing people already. Others interviewing me were warning me about the amount of rush projects, that everything is a rush and they don't have time to "do things right" because projects would get dropped in their lap with deadlines of the end of the day, I told them I had no problem with that and I would in fact try and abstract out the redundant parts with them. During the interview I had the impression that the company was hanging by a string and needed serious help w/ programming & management talent (I of course didn't say that to them, I just smiled and talked about things I think that could help, like writing unit tests for the rush projects, in order to refactor out duplicate code & speed up rush project).
A month after the interview I had not heard back, they followed up wrote they felt I did not demonstrate a good enough knowledge of OOP or MVC (this came from a Human Resources dept I had never communicated with).
Have any of you had such a terrible & offending interview experience? Is this typical of the average interview? I've been running my own company but jeez what a crummy job market if so. I think I'll continue to run my own company. Does anyone here honestly feel I don't "demonstrate enough knowledge"?
Like I'm sure I could learn more, but maybe I did something wrong in the interview? Was I supposed to just go in there and interview myself? Like run the interview myself, just talking and them not asking questions? (instead of answering their questions I could have talked over them reciting MVC knowledge...)
My other gripes were they mislead me about their unit testing practice (the recruiter said "they were using it but needed someone's help", the team said they didnt have the time to do it. The recruiter said yeah of course we have a dedicated QA department, when I showed up there was physically no department, but rather they just send out mass emails to the company before launches, and whoever tests it tests it). So yeah I felt like they mislead me, used up my time and didn't worry about anything but their own needs.
Now there's legit reasons they could have turned me down. No college (they knew it before they requested my time). I have a side company (they knew it before they requested my time). I use & am certified in Zend not Cake which they use (they knew it before they requested my time). I would have been ecstatic to be turned down for any of these reasons but I must admit I feel chewed up & spit out now.