Ask HN: Is it common practice for companies train interviewers on bad candidates

[throwaway12412]

TLDR; I suspect I was used as a training dummy for HeadLandsTech staff, to get interviewers experience. Is this common place in the HFT/American industry? Or is this just me not wanting my ego hurt. Looking for honest answers as from an European perspective, this sounds crazy.

Context:

I've been programming since I was about 14, I've done well in my industry and I'm trying to change over to HFT. I've got a weak profile and I know it, I've sent out about 100 applications I've only gotten 2 answers so far. I tend to be brutally honest with myself and I am just here to get a reality check.

The company I've been interviewing with is called HeadlandsTech and I made it through 4 rounds of technical test. In my estimation I aced 3 of them, 100% out of a 100% execution and did maybe 75% on the 3rd out of the four. After the 3rd one I felt like maybe I wouldn't get a follow up, but I did and I was very glad for it.

The fourth interview was easy, and I implemented what was asked quickly, explained my reasoning and offered improvements or considerations in a real scenario. The interviewer seemed pleased and it was all around good.

I got an email 1 day later that I would not be preceeding. This was quite a shock to me and I in the end I called their recruiting manager, who told me that I did not meet their technical bar. I restrained myself and told her quite politely that I had issues believing this, given that I really had aced the question given. It was a task I've done many times, and I've spent quite some time with various approaches and I discussed this with the interviewer.

She told me the best she could do was to ask them for their feedback and that she would forward anything she got to me. I said ok and the call ended. 10-20 minutes later I got an email that they are unable to give an feedback at all to candidates.

The fact that this person was so willing to lie to my face, and do something else when there was a written doesn't sit right with me and after looking it up more online, there was some hinting that certain companies use weak candidates as training for their interviewers. This fits with my experience, all the people who interviewed with me was very junior in the company and many of them asked very overlapping questions, seeming like there had been no coordination or red thread in the interview process.

As I said, I am a weak candidate from my CV, but I tend to be honest with myself and my performances. I aced that last interview and I am feeling like I was given a test that I scored a 100% on, and now I'm learning that I was unpaid QA.

I am really looking for honest feedback if this is actually a thing, or if I'm just doing wishful thinking to avoid having my ego hurt. Any feedback is welcome, thank you.

[romanhn]

I'm sorry to hear about this. Hiring manager perspective here.

First of all, no, it's not a common practice to train on bad candidates specifically. I have never heard of this and it doesn't make sense to me. Given how many candidates with solid resumes do not pass interviews, there's no need to waste time on obvious no-fits for training purposes. Many companies don't do any any sort of interview training. Those that do, in my experience, train via multiple rounds of shadowing.

Regarding feedback, almost no companies provide it. Perhaps the recruiter was new, perhaps the hiring team thought you won't take feedback well, perhaps something else. I don't think jumping to "willing to lie to my face" is the right way to think about it. Also, just because the interviewers were pleasant doesn't mean you were doing well. Perhaps there was a lot more to the problem and you weren't going to solve it all on time - again, hard to say, but you certainly can't judge by the interviewer's demeanor. When I was hiring, I wanted all the candidates to have a positive experience, even when they did not do well.

Finally, I'll be honest - you do not come off very well based on this message. It is extremely adversarial, makes a ton of assumptions, and has unrealistic expectations. This approach in fact is a lot less likely to result in feedback, because the company likely picked up on it and is not interested in debating the results with you. The decision has been made, I would suggest taking a breath and moving on. Acing the technical part is absolutely not a guarantee of hire. I have passed on brilliant candidates when the team gave multiple indicators that the person would be difficult to work with.

To be clear, I'm making assumptions here as well and it could very well be that something else is going on. But it would serve you well to introspect a bit and approach the process in a more positive, or at least detached, manner, without making it personal.

[throwaway12412]

First of all, thank you, this is exactly the type of response I was looking for!

I think all your points are very valid, and I maybe should have made it more clear that I am not trying to dwell on this and more looking for honest feedback.

I would defend myself and say that I am quite a pleasant person all around, so I doubt it was that, and the only feedback I was given, was that all the interviewers had really enjoyed their chats with me and hoped that I applied in the future. I had no adverserial interactions with any in the team and I ended every interview saying that if I didn't make it to the next one I fully understood and that I was happy to have gotten this far.

I would also say that the person I was calling is headlands head recruiter and when on the phone she repeatedly said that she would ask the team and forward the feedback to me. I fully understand the game theory of not giving any feedback, both to leave the door open and to avoid spending more energy on a candidate you have discarded, but it's the two faced way of repeatedly saying it over the phone and then immediately turning around over text.

This is overall a positive message, this means that I must have made some sort of technical mistake and that I can correct for this next time. In my eyes that is the version of reality I am hoping for.

Once again, thank you so much for the honest and realistic feedback!

[infamouscow]

It sounds like the recruiter reached out to the team for feedback, and their response was along the lines of: arrogant and unteachable.

Given the choice between a technically superior but difficult candidate and a weaker but collaborative one, most teams will choose the latter or pass on both. In my experience, it's more productive to mentor a coachable candidate than hire someone who dissents at every turn. In a high-performing team, personality fit and other soft skills matter significantly more than many candidates realize.

[throwaway12412]

Hey!

Thanks for the feedback and I am actually very happy to hear that, given that one of my strongest skills is that I'm generally very nice to work with. That was actually the one piece of feedback I got in the original rejection mail, that all the interviewers had said that I had been great to chat with and that they hoped I applied in the future. The reason given when I called was specifically that I didn't reach their technical bar.

It's actually you funny you raise it, because we spent the last parts of the second interview talking about how important interpersonal relations was and how we both, me and the interviewer, were surprised by how many people in IT undervalue the skill.

Regardless, taking the third person point of view is always difficult and I appreciate your insight!

[yellow_lead]

Some people may be debating whether your interview was good or bad. I won't judge, because we can't tell from just what you said.

This could be unrelated to your performance though, maybe they went with another candidate, maybe they pivoted and don't need the position they were hiring for, or maybe the CTO wants to hire their nephew. The takeaway in my opinion is to reflect and think of any shortcomings. If you can't think of any, accept and move on.

[throwaway12412]

Thanks for the feedback!

It's totally OK to judge, one of the reasons I made this post was to get some raw feedback. If the most common reaction is that I come across as arrogant and the unreasonable party here, I'll do some soul searching around that :)

And you bring up a good point, but I don't like to think in those ways because it takes agency away from myself. Can't fix a problem I had no control over.

And couldn't agree more with the focusing on myself and to do further upskilling. I'll continue working hard and hoping that in another 6 month's I stand a better change of getting more interviews.

Thanks again for taking the time to answer!

[yellow_lead]

You seem fine fwiw from your comments. Good luck out there :)

[dakiol]

From my experience, interviewers with zero experience start with shadowing (so the interview is driven by someone with experience and you just are there listening and learning the process)

[ck45]

From my experience, no, training is done in real interviews, as the last stage of the training.

But could be different in your case. Did you already search for interview experiences for that specific company?

[throwaway12412]

I did in my preparation and there are several mentions of this on glassdoor, but mostly from quants, which mention that they feel like they were mining for strategy information, under the guise of an interview.

I find such websites very hard to trust, as there is a heavy selection bias there and I am not a quant, so I don't know if that is something that happens.

Also, I'm sorry, but I'm not able to parse your first sentence. Is there an extra an extra comma there, meaning that there is no such training being done, or do you mean that I'm not paranoid and that weak candidates are used as training?

[ck45]

I meant that from my experience training is done in “real” interviews with candidates that passed the CV screening bar. I only have very little data points as in different companies but have been in lots of interviews with trainees conducting their first interview.

[thiago_fm]

I have the feeling you are struggling to accept that you failed on that process because of your expectations and are looking for validation that you aren't a terrible developer, given that you even shared the age you started coding as if you need to show us social proof. So you've written that post to help deal emotionally with that problem. So no, you aren't a terrible developer, does it help you feel better?

First of all, recruitment and processes are random, have you interviewed enough? Most people old enough have interviewed for 100+ companies, and with experience you learn that doing well doesn't mean you'll get a job.

We're also in some sort of tech recession for non-AI jobs. Many companies keep their job positions posted and interview people but don't hire them, as they'd like to keep recruiters and the team busy. I know this because I'm in a leadership position and talk with many colleagues who are also in other companies leadership position. (not that my company is doing that, though)

There's another reason, you might think you have ace'd it, but the interviewer might have different expectations, also, just by solving the solution or problem it doesn't mean you are fit for the company, sometimes we think we aced it, but they expected a different solution that you didn't know. Dunning kruger effect?

You've mentioned yourself that you've done 75% in a few, this might be enough for they to chose a different candidate.

Also, if your CV is weak, they might have changed their minds, not every company wants to train people, management could have pushed a different direction to the recruiting process or just the budget could have been closed.

To sum up, just move on and don't waste time on this, maybe focus on studying more? Nothing in life is guarantee'd, you might study years and never get that HFT job, or you might get it. That's life. Thinking about it won't get you the job, what you can do is practice more until you make it.

[throwaway12412]

First of all, thank you for providing this feedback, this is exactly what I was looking for!

I'm very confident in my own skills and I feel like I have a fairly ok gauge on what kind of level of developer I am. I am definitivly above average, but I am no guru or savant. I shared that I had been programming since I was young to try to back up the claim that while my CV might not reflect it, I've been doing low latency, highly optimized stuff for a while.

I have about 6 yoe at this point, and I've interviewed several times, but in this round I've only gotten two oppertunities to talk to an interviewer. I shared this also in the post, to back up that my CV is indeed weak. My post is not about trying to come to terms with that I didn't get the job, but more that I find it very strange that I, in my opinion aced the test and was then let go.

Obviously with a NDA and without a recording I cannot back that up, so I fully understand that you choose to doubt this. It was a very simple problem in a domain I've worked in. I've discussed this sort of setup with other developers before and ran benchmarks. I'm fairly certain that what I implemented in those 40 minutes represents close to a perfect solution, given the circumstances.

And I could not agree more with the last line, I have and continue to dedicate most of my freetime to upskilling. I'll be looking to build more projects for a better portfolio, I'm in the process of making my first contributions to GCC and Clang, and I Hope to give some conference talks either this year or next year.

I mentioned it in a post above, but I really view this as being on my technical or interviewing abilities as the best possible outcome, because it means that I can course correct and come back stronger :)

Once again, thanks for taking the time to answer, I really appriciate it!

[gsuuon]

It's been hinted at elsewhere but sometimes problems come in stages, and later stages are only revealed after finishing the first stage. If you've only finished stage 1 after 40 mins, they may be looking for the candidate who's already wrapped up stage 2 and is on to discussing improvements by that time.

[throwaway12412]

That is a very good point and something I didn't really consider. I've placed top 100 globally in advent of code a couple of times, so I do think my coding speed is relatively quickly, but maybe. Next time I'll focus more on speed, I was under the impression that showing your thinking and walking the interviewer through the thought process was more important.

Thanks for the feedback!

[thiago_fm]

I also thought about this in a few interviews and it wasn't the case. Often enough, the interviewer won't make this clear so you have to ask.

I've had this situation in a company where the interviewer told me they would like to hear my reasoning, but then I failed, because I didn't do exercise 2 and 3 and wasted all my time talking about tradeoffs etc, when the interviewed seemed interested about it.

Those recruiting processes are garbage, if you take this into account, it will help you to succeed at it, you need to play the game, many times and then you'll make it.

Wish you a good time on that career change, I myself, have given up and instead just accepted that I'll work with webdev for a long time, as recruiters and companies seem to be too concerned with experience to let a developer that worked on a different language or stack to work there and perform well.

[__warlord__]

First of all, don't be too hard on yourself, allow yourself some time to reflect on the things you have accomplished and be proud of them.

Also, if you are in Europe use the GDPR as a starting point to ask them to provide any information they have on you including interview feedback, they must comply.

And third and don't get this in the wrong way but you mention several times in this post that you are "a weak candidate from my CV", are you sure you are not giving this vibe to your potential employers?

Honestly, interviewing is hard and there is a lot of asymmetry between candidates and companies specially on this market conditions, my suggestion is (I know it will sound cheesy) but fake it until you make it.

[throwaway12412]

Thanks for the tips and while the GDPR angle is interesting, but I am not looking to spend more energy on this, they won't be hiring me and I don't want to create some sort of reputation about myself.

As to your question, I am very open about the fact that I don't have the CV experience to show for it, but I am very confident about the technical skills that I do have and in general I come across as confident in the areas I know things about.

The reason I am specifying it here is to give honest context and to show that I'm able to do at least a basic level of introspection. I want to be honest that I didn't go to harvard, MIT, didn't have any prestigious internships and I'm trying to switch industries.

But I am confident that I did ace atleast 3 of the interviews and that last interview, which was the reason given as to why I would not be preceding. This is why I'm seeking some answers here.

[roland35]

I am sorry, but I really don't think any company would deliberately interview a "bad" candidate. It is extremely expensive to interview and hire - I don't think anyone would agree to spend time on a candidate unless there was some chance.

That said, sometimes companies may take a flyer on someone, sometimes people just bomb interviews, sometimes it's just a very bad fit. Learn from it and keep going!