[WatchDog]

I once interviewed someone, who clearly had no programming experience. They had someone else complete the screening take-home coding exercise for them.

We spent the whole hour interview making zero progress on the task assigned. I kinda wish I had setup some kind of get-out-of-jail situation so that I could have saved everyone the time, but I sat though the whole hour just out of the embarrassment of ending things early.

[vrc]

I always put some “wrap ups” in my interview. Logical points where, when they stall or give a terrible answer, you can ask, “is there anything else?”, let them say something else, and just say, “Thanks! I think that’s a great place to stop, is there anything you’d like to ask me?”. I practice saying it with a smile, and don’t diverge from the script. Makes it much easier to end bad interviews.

[toast0]

I interviewed someone once who refused to try my problem. I don't know what was going on for him that day, but after the quick intro to the problem, he didn't want to do it. I was the last one on his interview schedule, so I walked him out and got 30 minutes back.