Reply to: Longest Interview

[trsisko]

nice

well just started ringing up agents and applying on jobserve around early January, got a call for an interview near Tottenham Court Road, but stage 1 is just a multiple choice test. There are 6 of us in total, 2 finished so quickly before me i was like they must be super intelligent why are they even here!
With no instructions on what to do once your finished, I take the paper upstairs but leave the exam paper downstairs since why does it matter. The Lady who took us downstairs and prepped us for the test seemed moody, I wasn't impressed!


Next few days i get a call, the agent accuses me of stealing the exam paper and I am like wtf, why would i take an exam paper home with me, I said i left it down stairs in the meeting room and just handed my paper with the marks to the receptionist, none the less I never heard from them again

If i see this agent in real life i will Knock him the £$%|^ out!

I bet a cleaner just threw it in the bin or something

[smiff]

I had an hour long one followed by a technical test. I was asked to wait on someone other than the interviewer coming to get me to show me out as he showed me the test room.

I finished the test, hung around for 20 mins, went looking for this person, found them, showed them the laptop with my test answers, asked for them to be passed on to the interviewer.

Clueless gimp proceeded to delete what I had done, oblivious to the test element of the interview. Communication in that organisation indeed.

I ran away. Quickly.

[Hex]

For the contract I'm in now I had an initial hour with a project manager, then they wanted me to do a brainbench test (I'd just done one for another bank so I got away without doing it), then they brought me in for a technical interview - another hour, then I was interviewed by phone late at night by the team lead from the states - that was 1.5 hours.

It was all rather lengthy. The procedure here for contractors is the same as for permies.

[scooterscot]

Longest was 3 interviews over the corse of 2 weeks all for the one job, one of which was in a country hotel...

I got the job.

Can't say anymore or I'd have to disappear you.

[Lockhouse]

I had an interview at CSFB in Docklands where I was interviewed in one of the boardrooms by three people (one at a time) for 45 minutes each. I was told that after the last one had finished they'd have a brief discussion and come back and tell me what they had decided.

Anyway after the last one had finished I was left sitting like a lemon in this room on my own. After half an hour or so, I decide to see what's going on and go outside into the corridor. All the lights on the floor had been switched off and everyone had gone home....

I guess I didn't get the gig then.....

[Darren_Test]

nice one - I assume you overhauled your CV..?

I'd say 45 minutes is on the short side, and therefore a bad sign, but having read this thread many will disagree.
If you thought it went OK it probably did - but it's the surprises that make it fun in this game!

Thanks..My new CV is yet to publish...!This interview was based on my old CV. New CV will be out in a day or two, I though I will give a break to pimps who might till recently flooded with my CVs daily....!!

[thunderlizard]

On a related subject...

I just had 45 min interview for a Test manager contract role....interview was OK.
is this duration (45min) is good enough to snatch this role..??
will they waste 45 min if they are not interested in my profile..???

nice one - I assume you overhauled your CV..?

I'd say 45 minutes is on the short side, and therefore a bad sign, but having read this thread many will disagree.
If you thought it went OK it probably did - but it's the surprises that make it fun in this game!

[KathyWoolfe]

in my experience most interviewers have little experience and no formal training for interviewing.

Yes, they're usually just the project manager who wants the "resource" and if you're lucky someone on their team for "technical" questions.

[Spacecadet]

Yup, sure sign of a poor interviewer.

in my experience most interviewers have little experience and no formal training for interviewing.

[Katie]

For my current position I had a 10 minute interview, but for my previous position I had a 3 hour interview with lots fo different "tests" in it!

[Darren_Test]

On a related subject...

I just had 45 min interview for a Test manager contract role....interview was OK.
is this duration (45min) is good enough to snatch this role..??
will they waste 45 min if they are not interested in my profile..???

[NickNick]

Longest interview for me was a rather grueling one a while back where they dropped teo 20 minute presetations on me in the interview.
Started with normal interview type stuff, then one of the chaps said, 'OK, so we'd like you to do a 20 minute preentation on how a mobile phone network operates from call to bill for Pre and post pay' and he handed me a marker pen and pointed at the white board.

Similar thing later on in the interview, but that was more problem based. As in, OK so in the network we want to do X, tell me how you would design and document it.

Overall I think it was about 3 hours. I declined the job.

Shortest is the one I've just had which was a sub 2 minute phone call and I was offered it at the beginning of the call.

NN

[KathyWoolfe]

My current role I had no interview with the client!

Same here, mind you I had worked for the client before (2 Yrs before) and gave them two project managers for references. The first time with this client I had just a 20 minute phone interview, more or less along the lines of can I code in COBOL etc.

[Crossroads]

I had a 40 hour interview once. For Goldmine Sachs! I got the job.

Goldman. They must have like me more. I was only there 8 hours before they offered me the gig!

[BrilloPad]

I had a 40 hour interview once. For Goldmine Sachs! I got the job.