I’ve been looking to change my career path and was recruited recently via Indeed for a sales position at a State Farm office in NYC. I was on time for the Zoom video call interview and once I joined quickly realized there were 40 (!!!!!!) people on the call.
FORTY PEOPLE. ONE INTERVIEWER.
Honestly… what the F? It was never communicated even once that it would be ANYTHING other than a 1-on-1 interview format.
This is what we’re doing now?! About 10 people left the call immediately, but I stuck around to see where it went and because I had prepared extensively.
1st question: What do you think is more important — intelligence or work ethic?
(This one rubbed me the totally wrong way and I still can’t really explain why)
2nd question: What do you value more — a high base pay or a low base pay with commission?
I basically started planning my exit at this point. Keep in mind, we were going through every single person’s individual response to these questions. The interview began at 11 AM and by the time we got to the 2nd question, it was 12:10.
There was only one other person on this insanely crowded call that wasn’t looking to suck shameless capitalist corporate d*ck and he gave me the strength to just log off.
I could tell the interviewer wrote him off right away because he answered honestly that higher base pay is truly what provides incentive for work. Crazy idea, y’all: people have bills to pay and they don’t want to sell their souls for a bonus. Dude had Pete Buttiegieg and Beto posters on his wall behind him, so that made me happy and not surprised about his response.
ANYWAY, it was terrible and I don’t recommend group interviews to anyone with self respect (or anyone who values their time / energy). Thanks for listening, though. Just needed to vent because I’ve been upset since 11 am, lol.
*Apologies for weird paragraph structure, take mercy on me