How to deal with a "show making" interviewer?

Question

After applying for a job as a .NET Developer, and after the guys at the company which I was applying to join got interested in my resume, they scheduled an interview, just like a very normal hiring process.

The different thing here is, the interviewer was really showing off on me today. He kept asking questions about some advanced C++ techniques(though in my resume I mentioned that I haven't worked as a professional C++ programmer, not even for a day), COM marshaling and stuff that is somewhat outside my comfort zone.

Anyways, I got the feeling that the man was showing off (really badly) to me, and I felt real bad, I was embarrassed as hell, and simply couldn't handle it. I think it's also worth mentioning that the man's accent was so bad I could barely understand him. This increased my nervousness dramatically.

Now for you all out there who have played the role of an interviewer before, what should the interviewer do to keep the interviewee calm and relaxed, and what should the interviewee do if he feels the way I felt hours ago?

Answer 1

Move on. Is your interviewer somebody you really want to work with?

Answer 2

It's not you, it's him.

There's not much that can be done about this kind of interviewer. If an interviewer spends an inordinate amount of time on questions way off the skills on your resume, then it's not really an interview. It's an ego trip. Chalk it up to experience and move on to the next interview.

Answer 3

Interviews should be a two way process. It's a chance for the prospective employee to demonstrate that they would be a good fit for the position. It's also a chance for the employer to demonstrate that their company would be a good fit for you.

Sounds like your interviewer failed miserably in his role.

Lucky you, you found out before you accepted the role.

Next! :)

Answer 4

I agree with the answers that say the interviewer is out of order.

However, it is the responsibility of a good interviewer to asses your technical abilities by asking you questions until he/she finds a level which you cannot answer them. Additionally it is reasonable to push you out of your comfort zone to see how you deal with issues about which you know nothing.

I would take it with a pinch of salt, and move on.

Answer 5

One thing to do is to speak the truth about what you think is going on. "I think you're asking me complicated questions in areas I don't pretend to know to make yourself look good. Is this really how you want to conduct this interview?"

Calling someone's game can have a powerful effect. Though as Greg Hewgill said, you may not want to work here if they let someone carry on this way in a group interview.

Answer 6

He should be interviewing you not telling you how great he is. No one wants to work with people who suffer from a superiority complex.

Move on

Answer 7

As an interviewee - decide if you really want to work for the company. Chances are after an experience like that you may not want to. Be ready to let the company know any decision you make.

As an interviewer. Well, my view is that I want candidates to do the best they can and really demonstrate that they'll be able to do the job. I expect interviewees to be able to discuss things that will be relevant to their job. If a candidate doesnt seem to understand a question or it seems like they could do better with an answer I tend to try to drag it out. Afterall, if I miss a capable candidate then I'm losing a business opportunity.

Answer 8

I would go so far as to relay the experience you had with the hiring manager and/or the company's human resource department. That's pretty inexcusable behavior IMHO and the right people need to have a heads up.

Answer 9

When I interview I will always ask questions about some technology that the applicant may not have experience in to see how they react.

• Do they waffle and try to be evasive?
• Maybe they have experience which shows initiative to move outside their existing work requirements
• If they answer straight out that they don't know what I'm talking about I'll have an indication that they can be counted on to be straight if issues arise on a dev project

its all info that feeds to my view of the interviewee.

Its wrong to spend too much time on this, which may be what happened here, but its still a valid interview technique to push you out of your comfort zone and see how you react.

Answer 10

I wasn't there, so I can't be much of a judge of what I didn't witness, but as an interviewer I would want the interviewee to feel a bit uncomfortable. Things change quickly in any environment and you may have to adapt to situations that are a bit outside your comfort zone once you accept the job. The live interview is a good time to determine how a candidate will react to things that are just outside his or her field of expertise. Do they puff up and try to show they know more than they do? Do they actually know more than they let on in the resume and phone interview? Do they show interest in new things and a knack for absorbing new ideas? Its these features that can differentiate a good candidate from a poor one.

Of course, I've seen it in my own work-place where the interviewer provides a little too much hand-holding to make sure the candidate feels comfortable, denying them the opportunity to show that they can work it out themselves.

That said, your specific case may have really been a demonstration of the interviewer's qualifications than a demonstration of yours; how should I know without having been there.

Answer 11

As an interviewee, I would state that the questions are touching on things outside my expertise. If possible, I think it would be good to ask questions to try and clarify what the interviewer is getting at. It is possible that the technical concepts are only peripheral to a higher level concept that the interviewer wants to know if you understand.

Even if you can't answer the question, this shows that you are willing to attack problems that you don't already know the answer to, rather than just giving up.

Answer 12

The old standard

" When you have to deal with abusive or stupid people, just imagine them naked. You will either laugh or barf "

Either way, don't spend time with these people, just politely excuse yourself and move on

Answer 13

There are bad interviewers in this world. You found one of them. How many people did you interview with? More than one I hope. In most companies, one poor interview result won't tank an interview.

If you find yourself in this situation again, just try to stay calm and answer as best you can. "I don't have experience with COM" is a fine answer. I would follow up with something like, "If I were faced with this problem, here is how I would find the answer." Show him your resourcefulness and not just your ignorance.

Once you are over, forget about him. It's his problem he kept asking you questions he could have answered by looking at your resume.

Answer 14

i think its always likely that in an interview you are going to meet an interviewer who wants to show off what he or she knows (usually he to be fair) i remember a few years ago being faced with some obscure code to comment on, using static properties in a singleton springs to mind, and then some pretty obfuscated highly optimised and virtually unreadable code. I dont think there is any way that you can get past this kind of thing, my only point to the interviewer was, that if the team were writing code such as that in his examples then the whole product set would be very difficult to maintain.

Admittedly there is always a positive to optimisation but if, as i believe was the case with his contrived examples, they only served to demonstrate how he could refactor the codebase into some incomprehensible edge cases that were incredibly painful to follow, serving little in the way of performance (or any other gains) then the practicalities of doing so seemed to be to the detriment of actually supporting and evolving the product. Maintenance is still the major cost on most software projects so why make that cost grow due to self promotion and ego... He didnt take kindly to this even though i did pretty well in the face of it.

I was not surprised when i discovered that the same interviewer had rejected candidates who had gone on to be offered equivalent or better roles, so i suppose at the end of the day, its in a companies interests to ensure that their technical appraisal process is based around real practical knowledge that is of use, rather than trying to decipher the contrived and often impractical and obtuse examples borne of someones ego... I agree with the other comments, i dont think i would want to work for someone who did that kind of thing anyway

Answer 15

I just point out what they are doing, but in a non-confrontational way.

Interviewer: So, what is this deeply nested API call to invoke some obscure com marshaling doodad?!

Me: Well, like I said, C++ isn't my strong suit and I haven't programmed in it professionally before. I'm not going to know advanced or obscure details about it off the cuff.

Me: However, if you want to talk about the languages I have worked in I would gladly answer some technical questions concerning them. Also, if you want to test me on my problem solving skills I am pretty good at coming up with solutions to hypothetical problems.

Answer 16

If you suffer ANY kind of indignity during an interview get up and walk out.

Answer 17

About a year ago, I went to an interview. The guys over there asked me a lot of questions related to Java/C++. Back then, I didn't know anything about design patterns ( except for the singleton, the design pattern every developer knows since birth ) except some of their names.

So, when they asked "What design patterns do you know/use?", I responded : "Singleton, adapter,delegate". I thought that we would just skip to another question ( not related to design patterns ), but, to my surprise, they started to ask more questions related to design patterns. Lucky for me, I was able to remember the use cases for them, and I was able to write the code they required on the spot. I got the job, but maybe next time, I won't be able to perform as well :)

Answer 18

Note that in some larger companies, the person giving an initial on-site interview may belong to a different project with different technologies from the one that you are being hired for. The person may therefore assume that you know his technology and ask you about it.

Combine that with the fact that in those situations many interviewers don't even read your CV until the interview itself...

Answer 19

I think it's appropriate after a couple of trick questions on your non-specialty language to ask if you are interviewing for a C++ position, or some other language like C# or asp.net. If he admits it's not C++, that might get him off the track.

You also want to remind him that you haven't worked on it professionally, but have taught yourself on your on time or took a course in a a while ago, and therefore have a foundation for proceeding into it in the case.

If he keeps on, just relax and enjoy. It's probably a total loss because the guy is off on his own track. It's just an interview, not the end of the world.

Answer 20

I like the "well, I don't know, but if you give me a few minutes with an internet connection" response to questions like these. =)

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Seriously, though -- this is something that, as one of the primary people responsible for hiring at my company, I struggle with a bit. We tend to interview much younger talent (e.g. just out of college, or sometimes even still in high school, especially for co-ops/internships), so coming across as an arrogant know-it-all is even easier given the experience gap.

To try to address this, we've made a ridiculously long pool of questions and then we hand-pick from it as we establish more of an understanding of the candidate.

We have a couple of baseline questions almost everyone hears; some are even sent before a verbal interview as general screening questions. (These are the kind that are fairly simple and implementable in almost any language -- we're more interested in the specific choices people make and the structure of the response than anything else, but it does serve to eliminate some candidates occasionally.)

Especially with younger / less experienced candidates, I try my best to make the interview comfortable, and encourage the interviewee to ask questions. This may not be as "hardcore" as other interviewing methods, but by in large I find that you can still ascertain if there are serious problems. (The issue here is trying to avoid coming across as condescending.) And it gives the candidate a chance to shine.

There are always ways to knock people off their guard in interviews. (See e.g. Jeff Atwood on puzzle questions if you're feeling mean, or Joel Spolsky on impossible questions.) And yeah, you've probably got to try to throw people for a loop at least once in an interview to see how they react.

But generally it's a lot harder to see a candidate's abilities under near-optimal conditions, and that's something that I'm interested in. Subsequently, you have to answer "how hard it is to get that person to work at that level"; it might not be possible.

This place may be somewhat different in that we don't deal with a tremendously large volume of applicants and we have a sort of "social contract" to give back to our applicants to a certain degree (to help local colleges, community, etc). So this might not be something everyone can do.

But I stand by my assertion that only throwing interviewees off guard or making them miserable is not going to give you a remotely complete picture -- and that's the interviewer's loss.