Awkward to say the least. The people seemed nice, but disorganized. Two days of my time I felt were wasted, where I had to drive on site for both a behavioral and technical interview. Behavioral went fine, technical was another story.
For the technical interview you were allowed to use the internet to consult documentation for easy questions, but when there were questions that required more thought, you were told that you could not use the internet to consult documentation. I was given a desk with a computer to do the test in the room where all the other developers worked. They called it a "project", but it was not. When they said project, I was under the assumption that the day would be spent with a paired programming activity with the other programmers. It was a skills test, and they gave me time to finish it. They were kind enough to take me out to lunch during the day as well.
Everything became awkward when as I was finishing the test, the developer who was interviewing me came up to check how I was doing. He wanted to review the test before I even had a chance to finish the test. I still had half an hour to go. Comes up to me a second time to see how things are going. As you may imagine my stress levels went up, and I found it much harder to concentrate after being constantly interrupted. Finally he wanted to review the test with me there in the room where everyone worked. Now I know I was most likely to get a grilling. I asked for us to go into the conference room. I told him I could not finish in time. I was told that I apparently had put them in a conundrum, and that my skill level was equivalent to an intern based on his "test". Me, who worked in software teams in two international companies have all of a sudden been deemed an intern.
How did I put them in a conundrum, when there entire process for testing was disorganized in the first place. Please keep in mind the following points to recap:
- I was told I would spend the day with the team to complete a project. Turns out the project was a test.
- If it's a test, and if they choose to let me consult documentation, then they should let me do that for the whole test, not part of the test.
- If they don't let me consult documentation, then they should at least leave me alone to concentrate and focus without constantly interrupting me. And furthermore, send the test over email instead and give me a time limit to take it, instead of having me waste my time driving there, filling out the job application, etc. to make sure that I am "technically sound" (which by the way I am) to their specifications.