What was your worst software engineering interview experience (as a candidate), and what made it so bad? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Answer by Milton Liu, Technical Recruiter, on Quora:
Disclaimer: I did not personally go through these experiences, but was involved either indirectly or directly as part of the recruiting team while at a previous company. Both of these situations are highly unlikely to happen to you, but hopefully you can avoid the unpleasantness that these candidates went through.
Lesson #1: Always double check your IATA Airport Code
A candidate was flying from Pittsburgh to interview at our Santa Clara, CA office which is near San Jose International Airport (Airport code: SJC). His itinerary was emailed and the recruiter working with him did not notice that he had mistakenly reserved a flight to San Jose, Costa Rica (Airport code: SJO). So the day he was supposed to arrive in California his recruiter received the news that he would not be able to make his scheduled interviews since he was in the wrong country, and his unintended detour ended up adding an entire extra day of travel. Supposedly, the flight crew had notified their counterparts in the airport so everyone there knew about his predicament (probably to his mortification). Thus he had many people helpfully point him to the gate where the first available flight to the Bay Area was located. So if you’d like to avoid becoming a minor international celebrity for embarrassing reasons, make sure you’re flying to the correct airport.
Lesson #2: Always make sure to close your hotel door all the way…
This second story is somewhat unsettling and many people are incredulous when they hear about it. This particular candidate had successfully flown into the correct San Jose airport over the weekend, and was staying at a 3 star hotel not far away from the office where he would be interviewing on Monday morning. Over the weekend, he called me and said that he needed to reschedule his interviews since someone had broken into his room and stolen some of his belongings. I assumed it occurred during the day while he was not present, but he told me that it actually happened when he was sleeping in the room.
Apparently, his door had not completely shut and a woman was walking down the hallway testing doors to see if any of them would open. When she came to his room, she walked in and grabbed his backpack and then walked out, all while he was laying there in bed. When he woke up all he had left were the clothes he was wearing, his phone, and his wallet. His interview outfit, laptop, and other personal items like his passport were all gone. Security footage confirmed that the woman had his bag and walked down the hallway and straight out through the lobby. Since he was an international student we needed to scramble to make sure he could get documents allowing him to fly back. The most impressive thing was that he still decided to interview on Monday, and did so well that he received an offer. Throughout the entire ordeal he was very reasonable and only asked to be moved to a different hotel and to be reimbursed for the items that were taken. So if you’d like to avoid getting burglarized in your own hotel room while you sleep, please make sure that you close your door fully, and I’d recommend locking and latching it as well.
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