Today I had a video interview scheduled with a large private bank in Boston. The interview was to be split into two parts: the first interview was supposed to be at 10:30 with 2 people, and the second interview was supposed to be at 11:00 with 2 other people.
For context, in preparation for this interview I:
- Had my suit dry cleaned (it was due).
- Cleaned and ironed my dress shirt.
- Shaved (which I don't like to do that often).
- Set up my camera, lights, and audio rather than use my laptop's built-in. (I do some videography on the side so I have camera and audio equipment, and setting it all up is kind of a pain but I wanted to have high quality audio and video).
- Researched the company and basically memorized the job description.
- Prepared answers to all the usual job interview questions.
- Prepared my questions for them, specific to their company and the position.
- Looked up the interviewers' LinkedIn profiles so I could bring up info about them if the opportunity presented itself and just generally knew where they were coming from.
I applied for this position knowing that this company doesn't have a good reputation in our region but I haven't worked in a couple months and thought I'd interview for a position I knew I could do really well and thought I'd be a shoe-in for.
I join the video meeting at 10:28, the first interviewer doesn't show until 10:36 and says the other interviewer is running late. We have a couple minutes of weak small talk because he seems very stressed out. During this small talk he tells me he's looking at my resume for the first time. Eventually he says we should begin without the other interviewer but we should do the interview backwards until the other interviewer shows up and we should start with me asking him questions. I ask one or two questions about how they are organized before the other interviewer joins, who also looks stressed out. At this point, there is about 13 or 14 minutes left in our 30 minute interview and I haven't been asked a single question. They seem very unprepared and begin to ask me seemingly improvised questions and don't seem particularly interested in my answers. It seemed like they were taking turns asking me questions and reading emails when it wasn't their turn, based on their eye movements and facial expressions. After a pretty unenthusiastic exchange of only a couple questions and answers they say there is only 2 minutes left until 11:00 and ask me if I have any more questions for them. I ask them to describe the company culture, if they like working there, and why they've stayed as long as they have… I get a vague answer about how everyone is really helpful there. They leave at exactly 11:00.
Now, I'm sitting there waiting for the remaining two interviewers to join, thinking that I better make a strong impression on these next two since the first two interviewers definitely don't have enough information to hire me. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt so I assume the previous two interviewers had semi-legitimate reasons for being unprepared or late. Maybe they only found out today that they were interviewing someone, maybe it was their first time, who the hell knows. I know I'd want an interviewer to cut me a break if I was late. And I didn't want to get into a negative mindset before meeting the next two people.
A couple minutes go by and nobody joins the video meeting.
Then a couple more minutes go by.
I think back to how stressed out and distracted the previous two guys seemed, I peruse the Glassdoor reviews while I wait, sifting through the few obviously fake positive ones and read about how overworked everyone is there, I think about how big of a coincidence it would need to be for FOUR people working at the same company to have legitimate reasons for being late.
I wait 11 minutes before leaving. I can't think of any good reason for that to have gone the way it went. I called the recruiter who set up the interview afterwards and basically say all this to him and now I'm waiting to hear what they had to say to him.
This sub is probably the last sub that needs to hear this, but don't be afraid to hold companies to the same standard they hold us to.