Many people have to go through dozens of interviews before finding a suitable job. We often worry that we might say something wrong or behave inappropriately in order to make the right impression. But sometimes it works the other way around: recruiters can also screw up. We have collected strange stories of hiring IT specialists to cheer you up and show that everyone can make mistakes.
Sasha Solovey,
software developer
I'm writing code in PHP. Recruiters often offer jobs in Java because my Linkedin lists Java experience, which I started working with back in 2012. Some recruiters believe that I might be interested in the 2020 Java developer position. Like, suddenly, after 8 years, I remembered that I had always dreamed of and now want to become a junior java player. There was a case a long time ago, when I was a student and was looking for my first job. I applied for a junior position in C++. The company then answered me: “Well, we have already hired a person for this vacancy, but we need a tester, let’s talk, we saw that in your thesis there is something related to testing.” In the end, they said that I couldn’t pull it off, since I didn’t know either the types of testing or how to do load testing. It would be strange if he knew. I know cases of wild and unexpected hiring. For example, when someone stalks you on Tinder. My neighbor had situations when girls wrote: “Let’s go on a date, and by the way: I’m a recruiter, aren’t you interested in our vacancies?” I had a similar experience when I was offered a job, then switched to non-work instant messengers, then asked to go out to dinner. The most interesting thing is that after switching to non-work instant messengers, communication was no longer related to vacancies.
Alexey Sinyavtsev,
QA Team Lead
To begin with, here is a short story of communication with a recruiter: There was a story when they offered to try out for a QA Automation Lead (C#) vacancy. I told them that I know C# at the “write a test or a simple framework” level, so the topic is interesting, but if the company is looking for a person who will be the strongest in technology in the team, it’s not me. My topic is communication, and I will be glad if the team includes people who understand technology better than me. The recruiter says: “You are called for an interview without a test.” I come for an interview, and my resume doesn’t look the same as what I did: the text 4 QA Lead years experience was replaced with 4 QA Automation Lead years experience. There is another story. They offered the position of QA Automation Lead, who would deploy automation on the project, write tests and make sure this ecosystem works. In principle, this was an unrealistic position, because even for a small project one person could make a prototype of the project, but a fully working solution could not. When it came to my questions, I asked what exactly the product was, what the users were, and what problem they basically solved. This aspect of the work is more important to me than the language or technology used. There was no exact answer, and by the end of the interview with the recruiter we simply came to the conclusion that the company and I were talking about different things and it was obvious that there was no point in continuing communication. We smiled and said goodbye. Two weeks pass, the same person writes me a standard response letter saying thank you for your interest in the position, but no. I don’t remember if I answered, but the thought was: “You called me, we’ve already discussed everything. Can I have a little personalized treatment for 3 hours of my time.” Another month or two later, the CEO of this company writes to me and says: “We are making a product about hiring, where everything will be easy and relaxed, and which will remove the irrelevance of positions and the unpleasant aspects of hiring.” And he said that he would be grateful for feedback. I say, I don’t usually give free advice on the quality of products, but my story with your company was as described above. If you are solving a hiring problem, look at what your hiring problems are and solve them, and then choose a framework.
Mike Tisdale
System Administrator
I do system administration, maintain servers, create new ones, and the like. The recruiter liked me and was invited to an interview for the position of system administrator. I was looking for a new job because my current employer was closing and I would be out of work in a few weeks. A team of people, including the president of the company, sat around the table to interview me, but they said there was another person coming in for the interview and he would be the main interviewer, so we chatted for a bit. When he sat down, he asked me about my experience managing COBOL development teams. My resume says nothing about software development management, and the only mention of COBOL is the fact that I took courses on it in college. I muttered that I thought it was a systems administrator job and nothing in the job description said COBOL or managing a team of software developers. Needless to say, the interview didn't last long and I didn't want it to. I felt like I wasted my time and the recruiter's time because the company didn't tell the recruiter what they really needed. The second strange story was a telephone interview. I noticed that a local church needed a computer administrator, so I applied. Someone from the church called me and, after asking a couple of questions about my experience in information technology, asked me when I would become a Christian. I replied that I was baptized as a child. She then said that church membership was a requirement for the job. I told her that I was happy with my beliefs and that I would not join her church, and that was the end of the interview.
Aniket Joshi,
developer
I had two experiences interviewing with a large smartphone company for a software developer position. I was scheduled for a telephone interview after I submitted my application online. At the appointed time, the hiring manager calls me. After a quick introduction, he immediately moved on to technical issues. I couldn't understand anything from his questions. Absolutely none of the terms or technologies he talked about sounded familiar. I asked him what position am I interviewing for? He was surprised, but replied that this was for the position of administrator of Unix systems. I replied that I had applied for a Java software developer position. This interview ended. Someone in the recruiting department screwed up big time.
There was a story when they offered to try out for a QA Automation Lead (C#) vacancy. I told them that I know C# at the “write a test or a simple framework” level, so the topic is interesting, but if the company is looking for a person who will be the strongest in technology in the team, it’s not me. My topic is communication, and I will be glad if the team includes people who understand technology better than me. The recruiter says: “You are called for an interview without a test.” I come for an interview, and my resume doesn’t look the same as what I did: the text 4 QA Lead years experience was replaced with 4 QA Automation Lead years experience. There is another story. They offered the position of QA Automation Lead, who would deploy automation on the project, write tests and make sure this ecosystem works. In principle, this was an unrealistic position, because even for a small project one person could make a prototype of the project, but a fully working solution could not. When it came to my questions, I asked what exactly the product was, what the users were, and what problem they basically solved. This aspect of the work is more important to me than the language or technology used. There was no exact answer, and by the end of the interview with the recruiter we simply came to the conclusion that the company and I were talking about different things and it was obvious that there was no point in continuing communication. We smiled and said goodbye. Two weeks pass, the same person writes me a standard response letter saying thank you for your interest in the position, but no. I don’t remember if I answered, but the thought was: “You called me, we’ve already discussed everything. Can I have a little personalized treatment for 3 hours of my time.” Another month or two later, the CEO of this company writes to me and says: “We are making a product about hiring, where everything will be easy and relaxed, and which will remove the irrelevance of positions and the unpleasant aspects of hiring.” And he said that he would be grateful for feedback. I say, I don’t usually give free advice on the quality of products, but my story with your company was as described above. If you are solving a hiring problem, look at what your hiring problems are and solve them, and then choose a framework.
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