[8dot5by11]

No, I didn't use recruiters based on the fact a lot of them are unscrupulous. I applied to Web product mgmt/project mgmt positions listed in the job boards.

I know the difference between case questions and brainteasers. However, its an entirely different story when a candidate can sense he's getting strung along. (And, no I am not an overly sensitive/emotional person.) The type of questions are not open-ended and nor aligned to measuring my skillset, but the queries are very pinpoint/detailed to deny these are hypothetical. Further, a simple/vague answer will bring "can you elaborate further?" Or, better yet, regarding a possible solution to an ecommerce issue, the head of operations pushes an Apple MBA in front of me and says, "you can type in the URL." Having researched these companies prior to the interview, and now in hindsight it is very obvious they were not only after a different vantage point, but to obtain "needle in the haystack" piece of compelling information.

Clever answers/solutions have rewarded job offers in the past. But I am a bit pessimistic having witnessed some rather interesting job interviews in Manhattan.

[veyron]

I think its unfair to criticize NYC just because of a few poor interview experiences.

But back on point: can you give a specific question that you felt crossed the line? I'm curious because I've never felt that I've been asked such a probing question before.

(and yes, I'm not going to deny that a lot of companies string candidates along, especially if they believe they have strong offers)

[8dot5by11]

Point taken. Its probably just dumb luck.

Like any interview, I am told about their problem and how they have proceeded into uncharted territory. And I am asked, "What would you do to improve our issue/problem?" As it appears, I have worked on a similar issue. Apart from wanting to know the specifics of how I did it, they want to know about the anticipated risks and how to mediate them, the barriers I ran into, how to resolve those, which tools I used, etc.

[veyron]

All of those questions seem reasonable.

Put in other terms: they threw you a situation that you would probably have to handle if you were working there, and then asked what you would do in their situation.

I do this a lot when I come across problems because it lets me see how others think (I of course ask the questions after having solved the problem myself). And each of the answers to the questions have useful implications:

- Anticipated risks: have you thoroughly analyzed the possibilities, and do you understand the implications of your decision?

- Barriers: did you actually try this? [If you've tried to put a solution together yourself, you will come across most of the barriers anyway]

- Tools: did you use a tool with the constraints in mind? (one time, a person suggested that I take a million-line CSV file, put it into excel, and use the interface to find the sum of a column of numbers.)

It's easy to assume that, with a specific situation, the company may not have found a solution to the problem. However, more likely than not the developer you are interviewing with actually was the one who had to hobble together a solution, and he wants to see if you could do something similar if it happened to you.

The reason why I asked about which companies you interviewed with: many types of jobs in NYC are either client-facing or front-desk-support, both of which require mission-critical temperament and mental agility. You can't blame EC2 for failures ...

[8dot5by11]

For this line of questioning, why not just throw me into an interview presentation? Your rationale sounds plausible--thanks for taking the time to making it salient. Time will tell what is true. I am looking forward to spotting whether any of my pointers were used in the site re-launch.