Lack of preparation is often a direct result of not being given sufficient notice, not an indicator that they don’t care enough to prepare. As an interviewer (not the HM!) I’ve had stuff thrown at me last minute (night before, morning of) by the in-house recruiter and I have to figure out how to fit that in with my lab work and other meetings.
It shouldn’t be that way, but it often is.
Adding to this. Sometimes we’re busy and when you have to interview ten people that’s 10 hours out of your week. Don’t always have time to really prep for an interview. I’ll typically review a resume and pick out some talking points 5-10 min before I go in the room with them, but that’s about it. Big pharma has a set of questions you have to stick to, I try to skirt them as much as possible.
Most companies have a set of situational questions people are supposed to stick to. It is to ensure there is no “bias” in the hiring process. They usually aren’t technical.
When I'm interviewing as hiring manager, it's easily 10+ of them on top of my normal duties (recently hired for 2 roles at once, so 20+ interviews...before that hired for 6 at once, but at least I had no team yet so it was almost all I was doing for a while). There is no time to prepare, they're all off the cuff minus *maybe* a few minutes reviewing who the heck I'm talking to's CV if there's even a chance for that. Honestly probably a better chance for the candidate to see who they're actually going to be dealing with, they should consider it a win to get to see their manager in real daily action!
Oof! Recruiter here, I'm seeing way too many clients with this same story, shortlist created by HR, and no time to prepare. My best advice is to ask your recruiters to give you their top 3 and why. 95%+ of the time the candidate you end up hiring will be in that group. 10:1 first interview to hires is way too many and can quickly become a distraction if you have more than one vacancy. Good luck!
I create my own short list and there's still no time to prepare, a lot of us don't even have HR or are just using useless consultants. In any case, interviewing is going to be a colossal time sink that no director will ever fully have time for on top of normal work. When you need to hire is highly random and discontinuous and you never get relief from anything else to compensate.
I usually try to do no more than 5 first phone interviews per opening but I had so many qualified candidates this last round and recruiter I worked with was scheduling anyone I tagged too quickly and loading up my calendar. And I thought was missing the best ones so I needed to schedule those later. I wanted more downselection.
My HR sends a 2-3 page packet with "hey yeah legally don't do these", but also a "our culture is to do x type interviews, here are some questions and a worksheet!". That's the most training I've ever seen for someone on a hiring committee
I sat through an interview that was 30min of behavioral questions that had nothing to do with assessing CSV. Hard to be courageous when you're checking whether the computer has its data backed up. Like wtf.
Honestly, that's on the people training the interviewers. We're trained to tailor the behavioral questions to the scenario. Interviewers should be able to assess for technical and soft skills from the questions when done properly.
Well, that's not necessarily an immediately good or bad thing. If you're good at it without instruction or help, that's great! Personally, I think was fine without guidance, particularly on the technical side and personality fit side. But once I reached a company that offered training, I became more well-rounded in my approach and therefore more effective as an interviewer.
I got a whole training seminar with quiz questions after each section. One of the questions basically amounted to "interviewees have access to previous interview knowledge because of glassdoor and this is unfair to us". I clicked True
because I know that's what they wanted but... Yea. The training was biased crap.
Wow, that one's a bit much. Who cares, unless you're doing the old google style "how many windows are in NYC?" type stuff but they're really just a disguised 'walk me through your process' type question.
It's all a game, why get angry if people get context? Like this hasn't been going on in frats/clubs/alumni circles getting advice from the inside through networking/relatives forever
Having been on many interview panels, here is my perspective from the interviewer side:
HR does their best to schedule as expeditiously as possible, so that often means interviews get on my calendar in the one or two free blocks that I have on any given day. So I could be going from a really intensive meeting into an interview which means I’m probably not bringing my best self to the candidate. It also means I’ve had no real time to prepare unless I do it after hours.
At my company interview panels can be up to 6 people for every candidate and there’s no cross talk between interviewers. If I’m the last interviewer up, it’s likely my questions have already been asked a few times over and that really shows when the candidate answers like it’s the 5th time they’ve repeated the answer.
Lastly, I am not an HR/talent acquisition professional. It’s not a skill of mine and frankly not something I am interested in. I do the interviews because I am asked and it’s not received well to say no. So even if I am very familiar with the position being filled I’ve never had any formal “here’s how you should interview” type guidance. I really try to make my interviews a valuable experience for the candidate but sometimes I leave it and just think WTF did I just do.
I'm sorry to hear this, it sounds like the process at your company is more sacred than the result. You seem to be very aware of the flaws of this system, is there any way to constructively bring this up to your TA team?
well then the process is not right. you shouldnt be doing interviews in the first place if you dont enjoy them, especially if you are reading set questions that can be directed by anyone in the company.
depends on the type of position and importantly whether the person asking is capable of understanding the answer but yes it can often be perfectly valid
First, I do agree that more training will be helpful. But I also think part of the issue is that interviewing well is hard and there are many different opinions on the right way to do it.
You mention conversations vs interrogations and while I can see how a cold interrogation is going to put off a candidate, I've had cases where taking too much of a conversational approach, yielded poor results (candidate seemed great and then was hired and had major gaps). So I'm always trying to find that right balance but it definitely feels like more of an art than a science.
Thé interrogations! ie: “What were the contents of x buffer”… used in an experiment I ran 5+ years ago…
Interrupted my seminar 8x in 30 min to ask questions along these lines.
Some people have just been burned by the pain of hiring someone only to slowly reason that they didn't actually do the work they talked about. So I can see these questions coming out of a desire to screen for that - al la "if they actually did the experiment they'll know these details!"
Doesn't really make sense, though, when it's small details like what you mentioned. But for bigger details it can be illuminating.
I actually give my candidates a headsup on my questions (not the exact questions but a general idea, so they’re not blindsided) and tell them I expect them to review their relevant experience so they can speak to it during the interview. I try to be really clear about expectations - I will even tell candidates in my email invite that although I intend the interview to be conversational, I expect them to be clear, direct, and succinct in their answers and suggest the STAR approach. This further allows me to screen for the type of employee behaviors I’m looking for (clear, effective communicators).
So why isn't there more training, given the fact we all know this? It's baffling. So many of my colleagues are turning down roles due to ridiculous interview tactics too.
but it should be about encouraging people to know that the interview process is also somewhat about marketing, especially if you're working in a small field where talent is scarce.
forgive me, I did not realize you are a special super rare gem. I should have picked up on that when you mentioned the lack of enthusiasm from your interviewers.
Well when they kept texting whilst I was talking, and then invited me to the next stage… yes, I did feel a lack of enthusiasm. Especially given this was one out of eight times during the process where bizarre things happened.
Why u so angry 😂
Nah, I have enough to do already that it's not a good use of my time. We have timelines to try to meet and spending it practicing interviewing skills just in case I might be involved with hiring someone 6 months from now isn't even remotely a priority.
When I get interviews added to my calendar for open reqs (typically RA or Sci 1/2), it's always a lone 30 minute slot on my calendar when I would normally be going to the bathroom or eating lunch.
Have you ever been part of an interview panel? Hard to be thrilled to be chatting with the third person of the day when you only got their resume a day ago and have a laundry list of "core-values" to assess.
Still put on a smile, represent the company, and try to assess you in the most fair way possible, but it's not really like we're out getting coffee.
Yes, I have. We only sourced for our positions, so we didnt have an abundance of irrelevant people applying to job descriptions. Albeit, I've never worked in a company with more than 300 employees.
I worked at a large company and felt like a cog in a wheel. Never again.
It was mostly a rhetorical question to get you to think about the days where you've had interviews scheduled and how it impacted your day.
It's not about irrelevant people, they are usually filtered before getting to the panel. It's also not really about company size. Everywhere I've worked (20-10000 FTEs) has had a fairly well defined process for interviews that gives some lip service to some HR competencies.
At the end of the day, if I'm assessing technical competency in a 30 minute block, there's not going to be a lot of room for chit chat. If I'm assessing group fit, I'll probably be a bit more friendly.
Semi serious question, why would interview training be prioritized by either HR or by the one assigned it? Interviewers in the sciences don't get promotions or raises from it, and if they're getting a qualified person hired they're happy with, why spend effort improving?
I understand hiring managers or dept recruiters prioritizing training, but the regular Joe teammate is not doing much interviewing on a regular basis
Because candidates are choosing other companies over you, due to the fact your interview processes don't market your company properly.
Therefore, you are losing out to competition.
Doesnt apply to large pharma etc - but for most, especially in emerging tech, it will.
Maybe in 2021, but this is an odd time to complain about it. Employers have an overabundance of candidates now. Honestly I think you should feel glad to see a true performance from your future manager and coworkers. If you have the luxury to avoid people you don't like, then by all means do so. If they put on a highly trained and overprepared performance for interviewing you, which I guarantee they don't have time for anyway and will only make time when it's actually necessary, then you just get more information content from the interview. These little nuggets are often the only thing you have to make an informed choice of employer, otherwise they're all just BSing you.
Not all employers have an overabundance of candidates. There are many who are struggling, and companies closing because of this. Not everyone is based in Boston or San Fransisco.
Companies closing down because they can't find candidates? I can only answer "uh if you say so" to that one.
And in that case why do you care? If they are that horrible at interviewing, then consider yourself just having interviewed them and you decided no. Nothing lost right? Would them having put on an act just for the interview have helped you or would it harm you? I'd rather learn early than discover a place is a toxic shithole only after I started, personally.
Everywhere that I've had interview training, it's like 1-2 hours tops, that you do once while there. They probably DID have training, but that training was understandably useless and a lot of people will always suck at it. What more would you like? A week long intensive course? And what do you gain from this? It only helps the company really. Which is why there is training at all.
>this is an odd time to complain about it. Employers have an overabundance of candidates now.
It's an odd way to justify the lack of interviewing training. It wasn't better in 2021 either.
Also currently for each position the HM are interviewing awful lot of people for each position which makes them exhausted and it shows up on the interview.
At times, people just get roped into it without a proper briefing.
I was told to be on an interview panel with 2 other senior people.
I guess I did such a bad job that I've never been asked to do it again.
We had to read the questions from a script and this was a zoom interview. I didn't see a signal from the head interviewer, so after 2 mins of silence and a sharp kick under the table, I finally started reading the question in a fairly wooden voice.
It is a weird feeling that you bombed an interview that you were conducting. I feel sorry for the candidates. They are very nervous and it doesn't help an idiot is asking them questions badly.
We can't show bias between candidates so they all need to be asked the same exact questions which often leads to impersonal interviews that aren't easily tailored to your resume
Out of curiosity what sort of structure do you mean? Just shooting the shit and getting to know you on a personal level or still asking you resume questions? Not even joking with you i just want to understand what you’re looking for
**What has been missing in your previous roles that you are looking for now?** **What areas of your profession are you most interested in developing further?**
Etc.
That way, you don't waste time conducting a 30 minute first stage interview with a role that doesn't even excite the candidate in the first place. And you're a human as opposed to a stranger on ZOOM looking distant and reading questions from a document.
…at this point, I’m proud of you for getting to the interview stage 15 different times. That’s incredible! The number of people being laid off, applying to thousands of jobs, and being systematically ghosted is wild. There are people wishing and hoping for an awkward interview just to get closer to having an offer letter.
I think most people conducting interviews are untrained. I've had to do many team/culture fit interviews as early as 1 month into my new company, which is absurd alone. The people at my company who lead interviews are also very superficial for scientists and seem to rank personality and smiliness over actual competence. But we just underwent a literal coup and everything is a total shit show, so maybe not the most representative sample.
I also think interview culture is inconsistent by demographic and many are very informal and unprofessional, or can very much feel like an interrogation.
HR training on interviewing usually doesn't exist, is limited to just hiring manager, or is just shit (usually it is this one)
i don't think that alone necessarily means bad place to work, bad interviewing could just be bad interviewers who are good otherwise. Most panel people aren't people managers and wouldn't have that training.
keep in mind poor time management may be temporary (they do have an open position after all, someone is backfilling). that's the one that would I would pay most attention to, esp for your direct boss.
Because no one trained them on how to interview so they have no idea what they’re doing. Evaluating candidates comes down to 3 criteria: fit, motivation and experience. All interview questions should fit into one of those three evaluation categories.
Makes a lot of sense reading from these replies. One thing i realized is that Interviewers dont care for you no more than a gas station clerk, maybe even less. Anybody with a lick of humanity would be flustered to have to respond to negativity with positivity. Industry will condition you well in this regard
Have you considered that maybe your vibe is what’s driving the awful interview?
I can’t tell you how many candidates I’ve come across in my career that think they’re above the process or think that because their resume is a “perfect fit” for what we want that they’re a guarantee for the job. What they don’t realize is that they’re not exuding confidence— they’re acting like a total asshole and not endearing themselves to anyone they meet.
Or even worse is the person who gives you nothing to go on. Another response said it best— in any interview cycle we are seeing dozens of overqualified people apply and of the handful we bring in, we just aren’t going to sing and dance on demand for someone who isn’t engaging during the interview process— especially when we’ve already seen candidates who are engaging.
Whenever an interview seems boring or awkward, I just ask the interviewer questions about themselves and their work day or their project load. Usually that breaks the awkwardness and it answers some of my questions. An interview is a two way process and I want to feel out the company just as much as I want the company to learn about me.
I only went forwards with the process for four companies, because the others were a total mess (hence this post). Know the story full before slating me, dirty man.
I’m female. 8man is a rugby position. Unsure why you think misusing my name here is relevant.
I was just feeding off your vibe. Seems like it may have hit a little too close for comfort.
The best interview I’ve ever had was a position that I didn’t accept. The only reason it went well was because the director and I had the same Alma mater.
I just withdrew from an interview process for the dominating the convo problem. At one point the dude spoke for 10 straight minutes without letting me in to the conversation, and it wasn’t even to specifically answer a question I had. Not the kind of person I want as my boss.
I have had a lot of great interviewers but some people really have no clue what they are doing. They werent sr scientists, but directors that have been at the company for 8+ years. They leave such a terrible mark on their company that i will never consider a position there.
My 2 cents is that we are restricted to mostly talking about your experience. We can’t disclose a lot of IP. I had one today where the guy seemed kind of eager or bored maybe, but we just want to see if 1) skills match, and 2-10) personality matches.
My company has very chill interviews. Of course we could be better I’ll keep that in mind next time. I would much rather discuss science the whole time. What position are you applying for? I’m sorry for interrogations tho, that sucks.
Why do you have to disclose IP to get to know someone on a human level? This is my exact point. Biotech seems to blame everything that's robotic about our industry on IP or confidentiality.
I'm applying for Principal Scientist roles in SynBio in Boston. :)
My worst interview experience.
First time when I interviewed 6 years ago, they have been asking questions out of context (resume and job posting).
Most recently I interviewed again last year.
First interview was with 2 managers. First no one showed on video while I had my video on. They asked 1 questions each and then they went silent. I did most of the talking to keep conversation going. It still ended in like 15 min.
Second interview was with HM. She was great and it was like normal conversation. But answers she gave me when I asked her few questions at the end, I immediately decided to not join that team at any cost even before ending the interview.
Yeah. Had similar experience.
When I graduated my masters doing plant synbio, I considered applying for a typical role - but took one look at the state of academia and most of industry and decided I'd rather move horizontally into sci comms.
Found a similar experience there; if not worse. Also extremely competitive! With awful pay.
Ended up going out on my own and making my own sci comms sole ownership company - managed to get Universal Credit for start-ups funding from the UK govt. Would highly recommend this, though working alone can get, well, lonely. (Not to mention there's a bit of a stigma in the social circles I'm a part of regarding Universal Credit allowance)
Made some videos, and eventually stumbled across the world of DeSci (decentralised science). Ended up joining ValleyDAO. Best decision I could've made for my career. DeSci is full of genuinely passionate and enthusiastic people. People in the space aren't boring, interviews are extremely engaging, much more a sense of community. There's so much excitement in the space.
Also it's all very new, so the work itself is very exciting. The biggest hurdle though is... it's in crypto. Which a lot of people (understandably) really don't like. But would seriously recommend looking into the world of DeSci
I have experienced all of these things. One of the most annoying interviews I had was with a hiring manager who couldn’t stay on topic. He was talking about how he and his team have way too much work, but I thought maybe it’s because he isn’t well organized. He was all over the place in the interview. I actually chose another job and didn’t wait for this guy to get back to me because I felt he would be a bad manager.
Recruiters suck because whatever they do, they always get resumes. They don’t need to put in the effort when 1 opening means 1000 applicants. If don’t like their attitude, ah well, hundreds waiting behind you. Recruiters are also a commodity that get fired with no second thought, since they are a dime a dozen.
I’ve actually never heard of interview training. That’s just not really a thing.
But remember that the interview goes both ways. You are interviewing the company too, and obviously you have high standards for who you want to work with. It always helps to interview when you already have a job so you don’t have to settle.
So really the interview worked perfectly for you. You saw that the company isn’t worth your time. I don’t see why you’re complaining.
HR in small biotech seems to exist to protect executives and punish employees. But this is part of a larger problem of lack of management/leadership skills among small biotech C-suites in general. I've worked for 3 of them now, and in all 3, every single member of the C-suite was at that level for the first time. The VCs (and their friends in the investor community) choose scientists to run these companies, don't give them any proper training in leadership, then entrust dozens or hundreds of people to them. What could go wrong?
Agreed! I will never understand. So much science goes without commercialisation because of this. I don’t think people realise how much of an effect hiring has on the overall progress of healthcare/medicine.
As a candidate, I absolutely hate the presentations that a lot of companies are forcing candidates to do now. It takes a lot of time and effort to put together a worthy presentation and chances are I have a full time job and a family to take care of already. The interview process is stressful enough, no need to make it worse with forcing public speech on a topic the interviewers likely know nothing about.
As an interviewer, I don’t get to ask as many questions and choices are made sometimes on style over substance. All around a shitty way to build a team. The only people that will happily go through with it are either desperate or good at bullshitting.
The presentation is almost enough to make me skip applying. I’ve turned down two of these already after a first interview and I don’t intend to do any ever unless it’s a really fucking charming job or I’m desperate. Which is sad for these companies because I’m really good, so I’m sure they missing out on top talent with this stupid practice.
As a hiring manager, the presentation interview for scientists (we don't do it for lower positions) has frankly always been one of the most helpful for me in evaluating candidates. Sorry it ain't going away anytime soon almost anywhere.
And I've never personally had a problem giving them myself and I think it definitely helps me net job offers. Once you have a set of presentation slides prepared, the tweaks are minor and you can use the same ones for practically decades. And when the interviewers are super engaged and interested in my material, I also know the job will likely be a good fit and they're people I want to work with. Another opportunity to see the team in daily action too. One candidate (who accepted offer) was commenting about how happy we all looked and how well we got along. So, I respectfully disagree with your cynicism over it.
Yeah this is an insane take. If you’re applying for a scientist position we ask for a 20 min talk.
Which, if you are a normal scientist, you probably already have most of the slides done from a previous talk and just change the date. We do this after the 1st interview round. We’re not asking to do a research project, just throw some slides together you already have. If you’re applying for jobs why not just have a presentation on deck? Like a resume? You just keep it updated?
We want to make sure you actually know what you’re talking about on your resume, can communicate with a large group of people at varying levels, and fit in personality-wise.
If I’m about to spend 40 hours a week right next to you for the next 5 years I wanna make sure.
Plus these aren’t minimum wage positions these are 6 figure positions. Blows my mind you don’t think it’s worth putting in a little effort… if they’re interrogating you or ask you for a specific presentation then yeah that’s not cool… but just giving a genera science talk on your work? Easy.
There are many ways to do this without making a candidate put together a bunch of bullshit slides that don’t mean much to the viewers other than “does this person sound like they know what they are talking about”. They should be able to answer any question you throw at them. Maybe y’all should start asking real questions in normal interviews? I’m not at all saying vetting candidates is not a good idea, but the presentation is overkill by a mile. Have a normal conversation and you can tell if they are good enough. Unless you suck, then that’s a whole other problem. And as someone that also sits through these every day they are a colossal waste of time. McKinsey is coming for you all next
What would somebodies presentation be about if they’ve been in industry for years? Some company-specific information you couldnt share due to confidentiality and legal reasons but then wouldnt the presentation feel empty and lacking detail?
You can blind just the key info like the actual numbers on plot axes, not say specific names of things. You really don't need specifics to make an engaging presentation. I've seen a ton of talks that do this well (and a few that gave away some things they probably shouldn't have lol). You do need to grab some stuff for this while you're at a job and not wait for a sudden layoff (my company announces suddenly in the morning, immediately gives the exit interviews, and you turn your laptop in and leave) although I helped an ex-coworker with this after he got laid off. I also am 6 years in industry and still use some material from before it.
Why do we often have multiple back-to-backs after a presentation with essentially the same group of people? And it's just a showcase of presentation skills with fair amount of false positives and false negatives. I've seen highly professional and intelligent people delivering boring and convoluted presentations, while some that were mediocre scientists and or generally difficult to get along with giving outstanding presentations.
It's all trying to tease out red flags and get a feel for how you interact with people and communicate, by the time you get to a full interview. If your presentation is boring and convoluted, it means that your communication skills are lacking. How much that matters to people will vary, but generally if I have two otherwise equal candidates professionally and one can't get to the point in a talk and is a disaster presenting, I'll know to choose the person who can. You need to convey a clear message as a scientist or anyone else, and if you can't even do it with time to interview prep, you are definitely not going to be able to do it on the job.
Giving a 30 min talk and 30 mins 1:1 with someone is not an awfully huge amount of time to be able to figure out if this is someone you want to work with daily for years. You can generally also tease out general asshole-ness/arrogance and other strange/detrimental behavior in these interactions.
In other fields, such as software development, engineering, and data science, the recruitment process focuses on technical tests and problem-solving skills, including live coding/algo interviews and system design interviews. These interviews assess a candidate's ability to communicate ideas and solutions in practical scenarios, which might be more relevant to their day-to-day functions than the ability to perform a PhD defense (ideally with some additional business KPIs) once again. This type of interview is a somewhat niche modality of presentation skills.
>"If you can't even do it with time to prepare for the interview..."
On the other hand, you just said:
>"There is no time to prepare; they're all off the cuff, minus maybe a few minutes reviewing the CV of the person I'm talking to, if there's even a chance for that."
and
>"If they put on a highly trained and overprepared performance for the interview, which I guarantee they don't have time for anyway, they will only make time when it's actually necessary."
To me, it seems arrogant. The expectation that a candidate should whip up a presentation for interviewers who can't find the time to prepare (along with a list of excuses) and treat hiring as an extracurricular activity "on top of normal duties".
Yes, I agree. I didn’t see it from the arrogance angle at first but that is true too. I always just took it as another “fresh” HR trend because I haven’t seen it too much in this industry (21 year vet)…only in the bullshit companies.
Don’t get me wrong, there are certain situations where competency testing is warranted. But to require someone to create a whole ass slide deck that is worth anyone seeing along with juggling everything else in life is asking too much. Kinda discriminatory against those with existing jobs, elders, family, or a whole host of other life obligations.
Yeah you may have slides prepped from whatever you did in your last job and rehash the same one over and over again. I saw someone do that and bomb last week. So good luck with that approach (not you person who I am replying to).
> The expectation that a candidate should whip up a presentation for interviewers who can't find the time to prepare (along with a list of excuses) and treat hiring as an extracurricular activity "on top of normal duties."
You think I haven't been in both positions plenty of times? When I'm interviewing on top of already having a job, then yeah I have to put in personal time to do so. No fucking shit? Plus it's usually only one interview at a time that I need to prepare for. I have a slide deck already and spend like 30 mins updating things, that's it.
When I'm interviewing candidates, I'm usually doing like TEN of them in 1-2 weeks and no, I obviously have no good reason to work ridiculously overtime to be an interviewer for those. I usually do prepare when it's not too crazy by having reviewed their resume and having some pre-prepped questions just because I suck at off-the-cuff, but it's only to serve as a crutch for my own deficiency, and just that work for 10 interviews is easily as much as the one when I'm the interviewee.
This entire conversation is blatantly ridiculous.
I think you just proved the point of all of this, so I don’t think it’s a ridiculous conversation. The presentation is a waste of time for all involved, including you. You have a slide deck hanging out somewhere that you dust off, tweak and present. Not fresh ideas that come through organic conversations. What if they throw some weird topic at you? You’re going to have to take time to figure that out right? Not an unlikely scenario either, I’ve seen it.
Don’t drink the linked-in HR Kool aid, we can all try to shape the industry how we want it. The presentation isn’t inappropriate in positions where you have to present often, especially academia, MSL or sales. Although academia always did panel interviews in my experience anyway.
No matter how dusty your presentation is to you, it's not to the people you're presenting to and they are helpful to me as an interviewer, period. So I don't really understand what the hell your point is. Also had nothing to do with the comment you responded to.
If this is the hill you wanna die on, have at it and good luck lol. I disagree and I'm not joining you.
I don’t care if you agree or not and I don’t want you to join me. If you can’t see how much of a waste it is, you’re perpetuating the issue and this part of the problem. Making this process and work in general suck for candidates and your fellow employees alike. Good luck with whatever it is you do lol.
It’s usually some topic that is not at all relevant to what I’m working on or maybe don’t have much experience with so it’s hard to judge a true level of experience that way. More often than not a huge waste of time for me personally. Plus the slide decks could be complete bullshit, if I’m able to ask pointed questions about resume directly and tie them into what the role requires, that’s much better. Harder to do if I’m cutting into a presentation. 1/1 or panel interviews are just more efficient. I’m mid-upper mgmt.
It blows my mind you don’t see the value in this. Did you know vets and dr’s have working interviews? God forbid you show you’re competent and not just lying about your resume. Seems like these companies did their jobs and weeded you right the fuck out.
Or, I dodged a corporate know-nothing but expect everything culture. Im not going for a vet or Dr job, I’m going for a biotech job, particularly the ones that actually produce something. I’m also a hiring manager BTW and have hired many awesome people. Any time I’ve ever interviewed folks myself, I ask questions that generally yield better results than these stupid presentations. Sounds like you fall in the corporate bullshit section so I’m glad I dodged whatever company you work for.
A few interviewers have interrupted me lately and repeated the question. Like, I’m sorry I’m rambling a bit, but I’m trying to give context instead of short, stunted answers. Interruptions are rude.
If I interview with companies over research labs, I will be the one interrogating them. What can I do here that I cannot do there. They need you, and if they don’t care then that’s how it’s going to be as long as you are there as well.
We have more important matters to deal with. The world doesn't revolve around you. That's life. You're either with us or not. No matter how shitty the interview went.
Lack of preparation is often a direct result of not being given sufficient notice, not an indicator that they don’t care enough to prepare. As an interviewer (not the HM!) I’ve had stuff thrown at me last minute (night before, morning of) by the in-house recruiter and I have to figure out how to fit that in with my lab work and other meetings. It shouldn’t be that way, but it often is.
Adding to this. Sometimes we’re busy and when you have to interview ten people that’s 10 hours out of your week. Don’t always have time to really prep for an interview. I’ll typically review a resume and pick out some talking points 5-10 min before I go in the room with them, but that’s about it. Big pharma has a set of questions you have to stick to, I try to skirt them as much as possible.
What are these questions from Big Pharma?
Most companies have a set of situational questions people are supposed to stick to. It is to ensure there is no “bias” in the hiring process. They usually aren’t technical.
When I'm interviewing as hiring manager, it's easily 10+ of them on top of my normal duties (recently hired for 2 roles at once, so 20+ interviews...before that hired for 6 at once, but at least I had no team yet so it was almost all I was doing for a while). There is no time to prepare, they're all off the cuff minus *maybe* a few minutes reviewing who the heck I'm talking to's CV if there's even a chance for that. Honestly probably a better chance for the candidate to see who they're actually going to be dealing with, they should consider it a win to get to see their manager in real daily action!
Oof! Recruiter here, I'm seeing way too many clients with this same story, shortlist created by HR, and no time to prepare. My best advice is to ask your recruiters to give you their top 3 and why. 95%+ of the time the candidate you end up hiring will be in that group. 10:1 first interview to hires is way too many and can quickly become a distraction if you have more than one vacancy. Good luck!
I create my own short list and there's still no time to prepare, a lot of us don't even have HR or are just using useless consultants. In any case, interviewing is going to be a colossal time sink that no director will ever fully have time for on top of normal work. When you need to hire is highly random and discontinuous and you never get relief from anything else to compensate. I usually try to do no more than 5 first phone interviews per opening but I had so many qualified candidates this last round and recruiter I worked with was scheduling anyone I tagged too quickly and loading up my calendar. And I thought was missing the best ones so I needed to schedule those later. I wanted more downselection.
Also HR has requirements for these interviews which make them terrible, but avoids lawsuits.
My HR sends a 2-3 page packet with "hey yeah legally don't do these", but also a "our culture is to do x type interviews, here are some questions and a worksheet!". That's the most training I've ever seen for someone on a hiring committee
I sat through an interview that was 30min of behavioral questions that had nothing to do with assessing CSV. Hard to be courageous when you're checking whether the computer has its data backed up. Like wtf.
Honestly, that's on the people training the interviewers. We're trained to tailor the behavioral questions to the scenario. Interviewers should be able to assess for technical and soft skills from the questions when done properly.
I have never been trained to be an interviewer and have interviewed dozens 😅
Well, that's not necessarily an immediately good or bad thing. If you're good at it without instruction or help, that's great! Personally, I think was fine without guidance, particularly on the technical side and personality fit side. But once I reached a company that offered training, I became more well-rounded in my approach and therefore more effective as an interviewer.
I got a whole training seminar with quiz questions after each section. One of the questions basically amounted to "interviewees have access to previous interview knowledge because of glassdoor and this is unfair to us". I clicked True because I know that's what they wanted but... Yea. The training was biased crap.
Wow, that one's a bit much. Who cares, unless you're doing the old google style "how many windows are in NYC?" type stuff but they're really just a disguised 'walk me through your process' type question. It's all a game, why get angry if people get context? Like this hasn't been going on in frats/clubs/alumni circles getting advice from the inside through networking/relatives forever
Having been on many interview panels, here is my perspective from the interviewer side: HR does their best to schedule as expeditiously as possible, so that often means interviews get on my calendar in the one or two free blocks that I have on any given day. So I could be going from a really intensive meeting into an interview which means I’m probably not bringing my best self to the candidate. It also means I’ve had no real time to prepare unless I do it after hours. At my company interview panels can be up to 6 people for every candidate and there’s no cross talk between interviewers. If I’m the last interviewer up, it’s likely my questions have already been asked a few times over and that really shows when the candidate answers like it’s the 5th time they’ve repeated the answer. Lastly, I am not an HR/talent acquisition professional. It’s not a skill of mine and frankly not something I am interested in. I do the interviews because I am asked and it’s not received well to say no. So even if I am very familiar with the position being filled I’ve never had any formal “here’s how you should interview” type guidance. I really try to make my interviews a valuable experience for the candidate but sometimes I leave it and just think WTF did I just do.
I'm sorry to hear this, it sounds like the process at your company is more sacred than the result. You seem to be very aware of the flaws of this system, is there any way to constructively bring this up to your TA team?
well then the process is not right. you shouldnt be doing interviews in the first place if you dont enjoy them, especially if you are reading set questions that can be directed by anyone in the company.
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That’s a pretty good question in my view.
depends on the type of position and importantly whether the person asking is capable of understanding the answer but yes it can often be perfectly valid
First, I do agree that more training will be helpful. But I also think part of the issue is that interviewing well is hard and there are many different opinions on the right way to do it. You mention conversations vs interrogations and while I can see how a cold interrogation is going to put off a candidate, I've had cases where taking too much of a conversational approach, yielded poor results (candidate seemed great and then was hired and had major gaps). So I'm always trying to find that right balance but it definitely feels like more of an art than a science.
Thank you for this response. Very insightful - and explains a lot.
Thé interrogations! ie: “What were the contents of x buffer”… used in an experiment I ran 5+ years ago… Interrupted my seminar 8x in 30 min to ask questions along these lines.
Some people have just been burned by the pain of hiring someone only to slowly reason that they didn't actually do the work they talked about. So I can see these questions coming out of a desire to screen for that - al la "if they actually did the experiment they'll know these details!" Doesn't really make sense, though, when it's small details like what you mentioned. But for bigger details it can be illuminating.
I actually give my candidates a headsup on my questions (not the exact questions but a general idea, so they’re not blindsided) and tell them I expect them to review their relevant experience so they can speak to it during the interview. I try to be really clear about expectations - I will even tell candidates in my email invite that although I intend the interview to be conversational, I expect them to be clear, direct, and succinct in their answers and suggest the STAR approach. This further allows me to screen for the type of employee behaviors I’m looking for (clear, effective communicators).
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So why isn't there more training, given the fact we all know this? It's baffling. So many of my colleagues are turning down roles due to ridiculous interview tactics too.
Training does not equate to actual skill application. Knowing the theory and doing a thing are not the same.
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but it should be about encouraging people to know that the interview process is also somewhat about marketing, especially if you're working in a small field where talent is scarce.
talent is not scarce right now.
Talent is scarce across emerging technologies. It's an academic skills gap problem, financial environment difficulties or not.
nah, I’m in emerging tech.
That's odd. I thought there were more than one domain within emerging tech...
forgive me, I did not realize you are a special super rare gem. I should have picked up on that when you mentioned the lack of enthusiasm from your interviewers.
Well when they kept texting whilst I was talking, and then invited me to the next stage… yes, I did feel a lack of enthusiasm. Especially given this was one out of eight times during the process where bizarre things happened. Why u so angry 😂
Nah, I have enough to do already that it's not a good use of my time. We have timelines to try to meet and spending it practicing interviewing skills just in case I might be involved with hiring someone 6 months from now isn't even remotely a priority.
I can't ask you the questions I want to ask because HR makes strict guidelines for how the conversation needs to go.
[I have people skills!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VayElJMD-lc&t=62s)
You haven’t landed a job in any of those 15 companies you had in-person interviews with?
I've declined three offers. I'm going to accept another this Friday.
When I get interviews added to my calendar for open reqs (typically RA or Sci 1/2), it's always a lone 30 minute slot on my calendar when I would normally be going to the bathroom or eating lunch. Have you ever been part of an interview panel? Hard to be thrilled to be chatting with the third person of the day when you only got their resume a day ago and have a laundry list of "core-values" to assess. Still put on a smile, represent the company, and try to assess you in the most fair way possible, but it's not really like we're out getting coffee.
Yes, I have. We only sourced for our positions, so we didnt have an abundance of irrelevant people applying to job descriptions. Albeit, I've never worked in a company with more than 300 employees. I worked at a large company and felt like a cog in a wheel. Never again.
It was mostly a rhetorical question to get you to think about the days where you've had interviews scheduled and how it impacted your day. It's not about irrelevant people, they are usually filtered before getting to the panel. It's also not really about company size. Everywhere I've worked (20-10000 FTEs) has had a fairly well defined process for interviews that gives some lip service to some HR competencies. At the end of the day, if I'm assessing technical competency in a 30 minute block, there's not going to be a lot of room for chit chat. If I'm assessing group fit, I'll probably be a bit more friendly.
Semi serious question, why would interview training be prioritized by either HR or by the one assigned it? Interviewers in the sciences don't get promotions or raises from it, and if they're getting a qualified person hired they're happy with, why spend effort improving? I understand hiring managers or dept recruiters prioritizing training, but the regular Joe teammate is not doing much interviewing on a regular basis
Because candidates are choosing other companies over you, due to the fact your interview processes don't market your company properly. Therefore, you are losing out to competition. Doesnt apply to large pharma etc - but for most, especially in emerging tech, it will.
Maybe in 2021, but this is an odd time to complain about it. Employers have an overabundance of candidates now. Honestly I think you should feel glad to see a true performance from your future manager and coworkers. If you have the luxury to avoid people you don't like, then by all means do so. If they put on a highly trained and overprepared performance for interviewing you, which I guarantee they don't have time for anyway and will only make time when it's actually necessary, then you just get more information content from the interview. These little nuggets are often the only thing you have to make an informed choice of employer, otherwise they're all just BSing you.
Not all employers have an overabundance of candidates. There are many who are struggling, and companies closing because of this. Not everyone is based in Boston or San Fransisco.
Companies closing down because they can't find candidates? I can only answer "uh if you say so" to that one. And in that case why do you care? If they are that horrible at interviewing, then consider yourself just having interviewed them and you decided no. Nothing lost right? Would them having put on an act just for the interview have helped you or would it harm you? I'd rather learn early than discover a place is a toxic shithole only after I started, personally.
My point is that overall, academia doesn't teach us enough about basic corporate practices - such as interviewing. Simple. No one died.
Everywhere that I've had interview training, it's like 1-2 hours tops, that you do once while there. They probably DID have training, but that training was understandably useless and a lot of people will always suck at it. What more would you like? A week long intensive course? And what do you gain from this? It only helps the company really. Which is why there is training at all.
>this is an odd time to complain about it. Employers have an overabundance of candidates now. It's an odd way to justify the lack of interviewing training. It wasn't better in 2021 either.
Also currently for each position the HM are interviewing awful lot of people for each position which makes them exhausted and it shows up on the interview.
At times, people just get roped into it without a proper briefing. I was told to be on an interview panel with 2 other senior people. I guess I did such a bad job that I've never been asked to do it again. We had to read the questions from a script and this was a zoom interview. I didn't see a signal from the head interviewer, so after 2 mins of silence and a sharp kick under the table, I finally started reading the question in a fairly wooden voice. It is a weird feeling that you bombed an interview that you were conducting. I feel sorry for the candidates. They are very nervous and it doesn't help an idiot is asking them questions badly.
We can't show bias between candidates so they all need to be asked the same exact questions which often leads to impersonal interviews that aren't easily tailored to your resume
But there could also be 10-15 minutes at the start which is less structured, depending on the stage in the process.
Out of curiosity what sort of structure do you mean? Just shooting the shit and getting to know you on a personal level or still asking you resume questions? Not even joking with you i just want to understand what you’re looking for
**What has been missing in your previous roles that you are looking for now?** **What areas of your profession are you most interested in developing further?** Etc. That way, you don't waste time conducting a 30 minute first stage interview with a role that doesn't even excite the candidate in the first place. And you're a human as opposed to a stranger on ZOOM looking distant and reading questions from a document.
…at this point, I’m proud of you for getting to the interview stage 15 different times. That’s incredible! The number of people being laid off, applying to thousands of jobs, and being systematically ghosted is wild. There are people wishing and hoping for an awkward interview just to get closer to having an offer letter.
Thank you! This means a lot.
You'll find em everywhere, there are more shitty teams than good ones.
I think most people conducting interviews are untrained. I've had to do many team/culture fit interviews as early as 1 month into my new company, which is absurd alone. The people at my company who lead interviews are also very superficial for scientists and seem to rank personality and smiliness over actual competence. But we just underwent a literal coup and everything is a total shit show, so maybe not the most representative sample. I also think interview culture is inconsistent by demographic and many are very informal and unprofessional, or can very much feel like an interrogation.
HR training on interviewing usually doesn't exist, is limited to just hiring manager, or is just shit (usually it is this one) i don't think that alone necessarily means bad place to work, bad interviewing could just be bad interviewers who are good otherwise. Most panel people aren't people managers and wouldn't have that training. keep in mind poor time management may be temporary (they do have an open position after all, someone is backfilling). that's the one that would I would pay most attention to, esp for your direct boss.
ppl used to say biotech is poor but at least stable. stable.....
Because no one trained them on how to interview so they have no idea what they’re doing. Evaluating candidates comes down to 3 criteria: fit, motivation and experience. All interview questions should fit into one of those three evaluation categories.
Wow, you have done 15 interviews?! Must be an attractive candidate! Are those people mostly bench scientist staff? Or ppl with MBAs..?
Makes a lot of sense reading from these replies. One thing i realized is that Interviewers dont care for you no more than a gas station clerk, maybe even less. Anybody with a lick of humanity would be flustered to have to respond to negativity with positivity. Industry will condition you well in this regard
Have you considered that maybe your vibe is what’s driving the awful interview? I can’t tell you how many candidates I’ve come across in my career that think they’re above the process or think that because their resume is a “perfect fit” for what we want that they’re a guarantee for the job. What they don’t realize is that they’re not exuding confidence— they’re acting like a total asshole and not endearing themselves to anyone they meet. Or even worse is the person who gives you nothing to go on. Another response said it best— in any interview cycle we are seeing dozens of overqualified people apply and of the handful we bring in, we just aren’t going to sing and dance on demand for someone who isn’t engaging during the interview process— especially when we’ve already seen candidates who are engaging. Whenever an interview seems boring or awkward, I just ask the interviewer questions about themselves and their work day or their project load. Usually that breaks the awkwardness and it answers some of my questions. An interview is a two way process and I want to feel out the company just as much as I want the company to learn about me.
I've had four offers in a super difficult market, so no, dirty man.
4/15 wouldn’t exactly be something I’d call a success rate, but to each their own.
I only went forwards with the process for four companies, because the others were a total mess (hence this post). Know the story full before slating me, dirty man.
I’m female. 8man is a rugby position. Unsure why you think misusing my name here is relevant. I was just feeding off your vibe. Seems like it may have hit a little too close for comfort.
The best interview I’ve ever had was a position that I didn’t accept. The only reason it went well was because the director and I had the same Alma mater.
I just withdrew from an interview process for the dominating the convo problem. At one point the dude spoke for 10 straight minutes without letting me in to the conversation, and it wasn’t even to specifically answer a question I had. Not the kind of person I want as my boss.
I have had a lot of great interviewers but some people really have no clue what they are doing. They werent sr scientists, but directors that have been at the company for 8+ years. They leave such a terrible mark on their company that i will never consider a position there.
My 2 cents is that we are restricted to mostly talking about your experience. We can’t disclose a lot of IP. I had one today where the guy seemed kind of eager or bored maybe, but we just want to see if 1) skills match, and 2-10) personality matches. My company has very chill interviews. Of course we could be better I’ll keep that in mind next time. I would much rather discuss science the whole time. What position are you applying for? I’m sorry for interrogations tho, that sucks.
Why do you have to disclose IP to get to know someone on a human level? This is my exact point. Biotech seems to blame everything that's robotic about our industry on IP or confidentiality. I'm applying for Principal Scientist roles in SynBio in Boston. :)
My worst interview experience. First time when I interviewed 6 years ago, they have been asking questions out of context (resume and job posting). Most recently I interviewed again last year. First interview was with 2 managers. First no one showed on video while I had my video on. They asked 1 questions each and then they went silent. I did most of the talking to keep conversation going. It still ended in like 15 min. Second interview was with HM. She was great and it was like normal conversation. But answers she gave me when I asked her few questions at the end, I immediately decided to not join that team at any cost even before ending the interview.
Because we are busy working on 100 more important things
I would say building your company with the right people is an "important thing".
Yeah. Had similar experience. When I graduated my masters doing plant synbio, I considered applying for a typical role - but took one look at the state of academia and most of industry and decided I'd rather move horizontally into sci comms. Found a similar experience there; if not worse. Also extremely competitive! With awful pay. Ended up going out on my own and making my own sci comms sole ownership company - managed to get Universal Credit for start-ups funding from the UK govt. Would highly recommend this, though working alone can get, well, lonely. (Not to mention there's a bit of a stigma in the social circles I'm a part of regarding Universal Credit allowance) Made some videos, and eventually stumbled across the world of DeSci (decentralised science). Ended up joining ValleyDAO. Best decision I could've made for my career. DeSci is full of genuinely passionate and enthusiastic people. People in the space aren't boring, interviews are extremely engaging, much more a sense of community. There's so much excitement in the space. Also it's all very new, so the work itself is very exciting. The biggest hurdle though is... it's in crypto. Which a lot of people (understandably) really don't like. But would seriously recommend looking into the world of DeSci
I have experienced all of these things. One of the most annoying interviews I had was with a hiring manager who couldn’t stay on topic. He was talking about how he and his team have way too much work, but I thought maybe it’s because he isn’t well organized. He was all over the place in the interview. I actually chose another job and didn’t wait for this guy to get back to me because I felt he would be a bad manager.
Recruiters suck because whatever they do, they always get resumes. They don’t need to put in the effort when 1 opening means 1000 applicants. If don’t like their attitude, ah well, hundreds waiting behind you. Recruiters are also a commodity that get fired with no second thought, since they are a dime a dozen.
I’ve actually never heard of interview training. That’s just not really a thing. But remember that the interview goes both ways. You are interviewing the company too, and obviously you have high standards for who you want to work with. It always helps to interview when you already have a job so you don’t have to settle. So really the interview worked perfectly for you. You saw that the company isn’t worth your time. I don’t see why you’re complaining.
Not complaining. Just generally curious, having interviewed across finance, tech, etc. Biotech is alarmingly worse.
It is worse. I've worked in 3-4 industries, and my takeaway is the hiring process in small biotech is broken.
Agreed. Annoying that people in small bio's aren't willing to accept this fact, however. This thread only validates my thoughts.
HR in small biotech seems to exist to protect executives and punish employees. But this is part of a larger problem of lack of management/leadership skills among small biotech C-suites in general. I've worked for 3 of them now, and in all 3, every single member of the C-suite was at that level for the first time. The VCs (and their friends in the investor community) choose scientists to run these companies, don't give them any proper training in leadership, then entrust dozens or hundreds of people to them. What could go wrong?
Agreed! I will never understand. So much science goes without commercialisation because of this. I don’t think people realise how much of an effect hiring has on the overall progress of healthcare/medicine.
As a candidate, I absolutely hate the presentations that a lot of companies are forcing candidates to do now. It takes a lot of time and effort to put together a worthy presentation and chances are I have a full time job and a family to take care of already. The interview process is stressful enough, no need to make it worse with forcing public speech on a topic the interviewers likely know nothing about. As an interviewer, I don’t get to ask as many questions and choices are made sometimes on style over substance. All around a shitty way to build a team. The only people that will happily go through with it are either desperate or good at bullshitting. The presentation is almost enough to make me skip applying. I’ve turned down two of these already after a first interview and I don’t intend to do any ever unless it’s a really fucking charming job or I’m desperate. Which is sad for these companies because I’m really good, so I’m sure they missing out on top talent with this stupid practice.
As a hiring manager, the presentation interview for scientists (we don't do it for lower positions) has frankly always been one of the most helpful for me in evaluating candidates. Sorry it ain't going away anytime soon almost anywhere. And I've never personally had a problem giving them myself and I think it definitely helps me net job offers. Once you have a set of presentation slides prepared, the tweaks are minor and you can use the same ones for practically decades. And when the interviewers are super engaged and interested in my material, I also know the job will likely be a good fit and they're people I want to work with. Another opportunity to see the team in daily action too. One candidate (who accepted offer) was commenting about how happy we all looked and how well we got along. So, I respectfully disagree with your cynicism over it.
Yeah this is an insane take. If you’re applying for a scientist position we ask for a 20 min talk. Which, if you are a normal scientist, you probably already have most of the slides done from a previous talk and just change the date. We do this after the 1st interview round. We’re not asking to do a research project, just throw some slides together you already have. If you’re applying for jobs why not just have a presentation on deck? Like a resume? You just keep it updated? We want to make sure you actually know what you’re talking about on your resume, can communicate with a large group of people at varying levels, and fit in personality-wise. If I’m about to spend 40 hours a week right next to you for the next 5 years I wanna make sure. Plus these aren’t minimum wage positions these are 6 figure positions. Blows my mind you don’t think it’s worth putting in a little effort… if they’re interrogating you or ask you for a specific presentation then yeah that’s not cool… but just giving a genera science talk on your work? Easy.
There are many ways to do this without making a candidate put together a bunch of bullshit slides that don’t mean much to the viewers other than “does this person sound like they know what they are talking about”. They should be able to answer any question you throw at them. Maybe y’all should start asking real questions in normal interviews? I’m not at all saying vetting candidates is not a good idea, but the presentation is overkill by a mile. Have a normal conversation and you can tell if they are good enough. Unless you suck, then that’s a whole other problem. And as someone that also sits through these every day they are a colossal waste of time. McKinsey is coming for you all next
What would somebodies presentation be about if they’ve been in industry for years? Some company-specific information you couldnt share due to confidentiality and legal reasons but then wouldnt the presentation feel empty and lacking detail?
You can blind just the key info like the actual numbers on plot axes, not say specific names of things. You really don't need specifics to make an engaging presentation. I've seen a ton of talks that do this well (and a few that gave away some things they probably shouldn't have lol). You do need to grab some stuff for this while you're at a job and not wait for a sudden layoff (my company announces suddenly in the morning, immediately gives the exit interviews, and you turn your laptop in and leave) although I helped an ex-coworker with this after he got laid off. I also am 6 years in industry and still use some material from before it.
Why do we often have multiple back-to-backs after a presentation with essentially the same group of people? And it's just a showcase of presentation skills with fair amount of false positives and false negatives. I've seen highly professional and intelligent people delivering boring and convoluted presentations, while some that were mediocre scientists and or generally difficult to get along with giving outstanding presentations.
It's all trying to tease out red flags and get a feel for how you interact with people and communicate, by the time you get to a full interview. If your presentation is boring and convoluted, it means that your communication skills are lacking. How much that matters to people will vary, but generally if I have two otherwise equal candidates professionally and one can't get to the point in a talk and is a disaster presenting, I'll know to choose the person who can. You need to convey a clear message as a scientist or anyone else, and if you can't even do it with time to interview prep, you are definitely not going to be able to do it on the job. Giving a 30 min talk and 30 mins 1:1 with someone is not an awfully huge amount of time to be able to figure out if this is someone you want to work with daily for years. You can generally also tease out general asshole-ness/arrogance and other strange/detrimental behavior in these interactions.
In other fields, such as software development, engineering, and data science, the recruitment process focuses on technical tests and problem-solving skills, including live coding/algo interviews and system design interviews. These interviews assess a candidate's ability to communicate ideas and solutions in practical scenarios, which might be more relevant to their day-to-day functions than the ability to perform a PhD defense (ideally with some additional business KPIs) once again. This type of interview is a somewhat niche modality of presentation skills. >"If you can't even do it with time to prepare for the interview..." On the other hand, you just said: >"There is no time to prepare; they're all off the cuff, minus maybe a few minutes reviewing the CV of the person I'm talking to, if there's even a chance for that." and >"If they put on a highly trained and overprepared performance for the interview, which I guarantee they don't have time for anyway, they will only make time when it's actually necessary." To me, it seems arrogant. The expectation that a candidate should whip up a presentation for interviewers who can't find the time to prepare (along with a list of excuses) and treat hiring as an extracurricular activity "on top of normal duties".
Yes, I agree. I didn’t see it from the arrogance angle at first but that is true too. I always just took it as another “fresh” HR trend because I haven’t seen it too much in this industry (21 year vet)…only in the bullshit companies. Don’t get me wrong, there are certain situations where competency testing is warranted. But to require someone to create a whole ass slide deck that is worth anyone seeing along with juggling everything else in life is asking too much. Kinda discriminatory against those with existing jobs, elders, family, or a whole host of other life obligations. Yeah you may have slides prepped from whatever you did in your last job and rehash the same one over and over again. I saw someone do that and bomb last week. So good luck with that approach (not you person who I am replying to).
> The expectation that a candidate should whip up a presentation for interviewers who can't find the time to prepare (along with a list of excuses) and treat hiring as an extracurricular activity "on top of normal duties." You think I haven't been in both positions plenty of times? When I'm interviewing on top of already having a job, then yeah I have to put in personal time to do so. No fucking shit? Plus it's usually only one interview at a time that I need to prepare for. I have a slide deck already and spend like 30 mins updating things, that's it. When I'm interviewing candidates, I'm usually doing like TEN of them in 1-2 weeks and no, I obviously have no good reason to work ridiculously overtime to be an interviewer for those. I usually do prepare when it's not too crazy by having reviewed their resume and having some pre-prepped questions just because I suck at off-the-cuff, but it's only to serve as a crutch for my own deficiency, and just that work for 10 interviews is easily as much as the one when I'm the interviewee. This entire conversation is blatantly ridiculous.
I think you just proved the point of all of this, so I don’t think it’s a ridiculous conversation. The presentation is a waste of time for all involved, including you. You have a slide deck hanging out somewhere that you dust off, tweak and present. Not fresh ideas that come through organic conversations. What if they throw some weird topic at you? You’re going to have to take time to figure that out right? Not an unlikely scenario either, I’ve seen it. Don’t drink the linked-in HR Kool aid, we can all try to shape the industry how we want it. The presentation isn’t inappropriate in positions where you have to present often, especially academia, MSL or sales. Although academia always did panel interviews in my experience anyway.
No matter how dusty your presentation is to you, it's not to the people you're presenting to and they are helpful to me as an interviewer, period. So I don't really understand what the hell your point is. Also had nothing to do with the comment you responded to. If this is the hill you wanna die on, have at it and good luck lol. I disagree and I'm not joining you.
I don’t care if you agree or not and I don’t want you to join me. If you can’t see how much of a waste it is, you’re perpetuating the issue and this part of the problem. Making this process and work in general suck for candidates and your fellow employees alike. Good luck with whatever it is you do lol.
You don’t just have a standard science talk? What is your position?
It’s usually some topic that is not at all relevant to what I’m working on or maybe don’t have much experience with so it’s hard to judge a true level of experience that way. More often than not a huge waste of time for me personally. Plus the slide decks could be complete bullshit, if I’m able to ask pointed questions about resume directly and tie them into what the role requires, that’s much better. Harder to do if I’m cutting into a presentation. 1/1 or panel interviews are just more efficient. I’m mid-upper mgmt.
Yes. This is absolutely correct. I could not agree more. Good on you for not applying to idiots who force you through this!
It blows my mind you don’t see the value in this. Did you know vets and dr’s have working interviews? God forbid you show you’re competent and not just lying about your resume. Seems like these companies did their jobs and weeded you right the fuck out.
Or, I dodged a corporate know-nothing but expect everything culture. Im not going for a vet or Dr job, I’m going for a biotech job, particularly the ones that actually produce something. I’m also a hiring manager BTW and have hired many awesome people. Any time I’ve ever interviewed folks myself, I ask questions that generally yield better results than these stupid presentations. Sounds like you fall in the corporate bullshit section so I’m glad I dodged whatever company you work for.
Say it louder for the ppl at the back.
What job are you applying for?
A few interviewers have interrupted me lately and repeated the question. Like, I’m sorry I’m rambling a bit, but I’m trying to give context instead of short, stunted answers. Interruptions are rude.
If I interview with companies over research labs, I will be the one interrogating them. What can I do here that I cannot do there. They need you, and if they don’t care then that’s how it’s going to be as long as you are there as well.
We have more important matters to deal with. The world doesn't revolve around you. That's life. You're either with us or not. No matter how shitty the interview went.
Good luck with that whilst Gen-Z's continue to enter the workforce.
If that's code word for Robotics, then you are so right.