What's your record number of consecutive interviews before landing a contract?

[pootle]

If you arent landing at least 1 contract offer for every 3 interviews, there's something majorly wrong. Anyone going to 19 or 20 interviews and not getting an offer is wasting everyone's time.

No he's making the other candidate look good and for that reason we should encourage him (especially if you or me is up against him).

Sticks and stones eh lads?

[Scoi]

The way I see it is that to get past to agent and CV stage, the clientco think you're a pretty good fit for the role; the interview is just to confirm that the CV is true and that the personality is right for the position.

In 10 or so years as permie and contractor, I've probably got a 60% success rate from interview but a 25% success rate of getting an interview from the CV stage. When looking to fill a role, a company won't want to interview 10 people, it's typical the best 2 or 3 are picked for interview so a long string of failures at interview mean something is not right.

[MyUserName]

I think my path last year went something like ...

For a perm position I have had 10 consecutive interviews for one position (it took almost 4 hours and I was starving and desperate for coffee by the end of it), I failed at number 10 when I blew a straightforward question about virtual multiple inheritance and followed up by the manager asking if i had unix experience, me saying no but I was told it would be straightforwad to learn what I needed on the job and him replying that he disagreed.

Another phone interview got blown when the interviewer asked what happened under the hood when you call new in C++. Then he asked what happened under the hood when you call alloc - I said I was not sure as I had never needed to go that deep. He told the agent that i had failed to answer basic C++ questions.

I failed an interview in a bank in London when I had a brain glitch and mixed up swaps and futures but did so confidently and as if I really knew what I was talking about. Made rather a fool of myself.

I did 2 interviews at a local company. One guy did not like me but the other two were very keen, they wrote an exam for me so I went back and did that. The only question I did not get was one from their actual code which had a potential bug - their programmer did not get it either. However, the one guy who did not like me was the CEO so that was the end of that.

My first contract position interview was going awesomely until I spoke to the manager's manager who wanted to discuss a technical project I had done. I chose an impressive one from a year or so previously but I had not expected him to ask highly detailed technical questions to which I could not remember the answers - that ended that.

One company was very weird, I went down there and sat an exam. Went back to discuss the exam with the manager and a programmer and was there for about 20 minutes before the interview ended. No idea what I said wrong but I royally spannered something!

My last contract had 3 interviews and I got it. This contract had one interview which lasted about 20 minutes and was purely to see if I was lying on my cv and whether I was going to be a good social fit for the team.

[NotAllThere]

One of my ex-colleagues has just on his 11th interview... for the same permie job.

[MyUserName]

One of my ex-colleagues has just on his 11th interview... for the same permie job.

No a large company based in London beginning with B is it?!

[formant]

No a large company based in London beginning with B is it?!

I was going to ask if it's by any chance a large online retailer beginning with A. They're also well known for that sort of inefficient recruitment. (I had lost all interest in the job after interview number 5)

[Ignis Fatuus]

I had one interviewer insist on questions where I said I couldn't say off the top of my head: I would always find out the answers by using the standard toolkit. Not only do I not keep it all in my head, actually it might be custom-configured so you must check each case.

He was insistent that someone who claimed to know the stuff must know the answers to these questions off pat, so he rejected me.

Later the agency called back: the interviewer had run through all the other candidates and decided to talk to me again. I said I wan't interested.

An interview is a 2-way process, and he was wrong in thinking that it was I who had failed the interview.

[captainham]

An interview is a 2-way process, and he was wrong in thinking that it was I who had failed the interview.

I'd have been tempted to add £100 on my day rate then go back for a 2nd interview to see if his attitude had improved, especially if he scared all the other candidates away.

[Ignis Fatuus]

I'd have been tempted to add £100 on my day rate then go back for a 2nd interview to see if his attitude had improved, especially if he scared all the other candidates away.

Good idea. I'm a poor businessman. Intead of failing the interview, what he did is increase the requirements ("working with a prat"), and then let me know that it was not a buyer's market.

[captainham]

Good idea. I'm a poor businessman. Intead of failing the interview, what he did is increase the requirements ("working with a prat"), and then let me know that it was not a buyer's market.

Yeah, and it's the 'prat' part that might mean even a £200 a day increase is not worth it. Guess you have to judge it at the time, if the guy seems like he will be nothing but trouble then you're probably best to forget it and move on anyway.

There's a limit to how much you can put up with regardless of the rate.