Throwaway account…
Let me set the stage. I worked for a huge computer company, learned a ton of technical skills, then worked for a huge software company as a technical specialist. I left that job to be a stay at home dad for a while. 18 months later, I start interviewing for technical roles in another state.
I get an interview at a small hosting company that would be supporting the technology I spent the last 10 years studying. The general boss of the place is cool and we seemed to hit it off fairly well. Then the technical boss (the guy I would report to) comes in and just wrecks the whole vibe.
First, since I haven't worked in 18 months, I am obviously out of date in my technical knowledge. Nevermind I spent all 18 months deliberately studying and keeping up with the tech to stay current. I even branched out and learned some decent web development skills that weren't directly related, but really did help some stuff click. I'm an infrastructure guy, so learning some dev stuff really did help. But anyway, not working? Strike one.
Next, he was concerned because I never had experience working in a small company before. All of my experience was at huge companies like Dell and Microsoft. “Yes, I spent a lot of time at large organizations that heavily invest in training for technical employees. That should be a plus.” It wasn't. Strike two.
Next, he asks me what I would do if I didn't know the answer to a technical problem. I asked for an example and he described an issue with networking in Azure Stack. I responded “hah, that's funny. I was just at Microsoft and know a lot of that team. One of my good friends is literally the guy that documents the product. I have lots of contacts to leverage for things like that.” Strike 3. The correct answer was “read through the docs and research the problem online.” I KNEW THE PEOPLE THAT WROTE THE DAMN PRODUCT but that wasn't the right answer. The right answer was “Google it.”
At that point, I thanked them for their time and left. The recruiter called a bit later and I told him what happened. He was pretty upset, but it was their decision. This was 2017. They are no longer in business and I'm happy elsewhere.