I just finished a preliminary interview for a medium sized engineering company. The interviewer was impressed with my background and asked to proceed with my candidacy but wanted four additional rounds of interviews and a 30 minute technical presentation about how I solved a problem. I turned them down and said I don’t work for free, the amount of time it would take to gather my notes and thoughts on a slide deck would be too much. She quickly soured and we ended the call soon after. I feel like I dodged a bullet going through a gauntlet of work for the high chance of ending up with nothing.
What are Lemmy’s thoughts on preparing presentations for lengthy job interview processes? Would you have considered going through with it?
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To be honest, if it’s a job I really wanted, I would definitely do it (and have done in the past, even for a job I wasn’t sure I wanted - actually got it and then declined the offer in the end). It’s something you’ll spend 40 hours every week of your life with. In my opinion it makes sense to invest some time beforehand for both sides to make sure it’s a good fit. Otherwise nobody will be happy long term.
Doing a short 5-10min presentation on problem solving or a project portfolio isn’t unusual in higher level positions where your experience does more weightlifting than your education. But 4 whole rounds of interviews on top of a FULL 30 minute presentation is definitely excessive and seems like a string-along.
My SO’s company asks for presentations if a candidate for certain high-level positions make it to final rounds of interviewing. It’s pitched as being a “high level overview to start a conversation, not a TED talk”. They also pay the candidates for the time to put this presentation together. I think it’s something like $200, but I am not sure.
Being asked to put together a presentation is not necessarily bad, but being asked to put in your personal time without compensation is a red flag. It speaks a lot to their culture and expectations of personal sacrifice the company likely asks of their employees.
You bring up a good point with culture and expectations. The job required occasional unpaid overtime since it’s a salaried position.
That’s not a reasonable requirement of a salaried position. People might think it is, but they’ve been tricked.
Needing to work extra long hours occasionally during extra-busy times is one thing, but it should be balanced with being able to stop working early during slow times.
You definitely dodged a bullet.
I’ve interviewed and hired for several advanced-level positions. A confident interviewer doesn’t make the interviewee go through all that shit.
If I can’t tell based on work samples, one phone interview, one live/video interview, and maybe a few written questions? The problem is me, not the candidate.
Over my career I’ve applied for several faculty, research faculty, and research scientist positions, and they always asked for a presentation. I would consider it a red flag if they did not ask for a presentation. I always had 4+ interview sessions with individuals or in groups.
Earlier in my career I interviewed for programmer positions and it was just interviews and “solve this problem on the board”. I always figured the more interviews the better; it gave me a chance to figure out if I myself wanted to be at the place.
Respectfully, I think it was OK for them to ask for that kind of presentation. They probably wanted to see how well you are at communicating technical ideas. It shouldn’t have been that hard anyway. Just think of the hardest problems you had to solve. The structure of your talk could be: Problem, Solution, Details. First just say here’s the problem and why it was important and why it was difficult. Then say: here’s the solution that I applied and why it was clever, or elegant, or hard-won. Then provide all the details, including how you collaborated with people. Really, you should have several examples like that in mind every time you go into an interview, and make sure to insert them in the conversation. So the slides are just reminders to yourself about the details. Try to throw in some graphs and pictures if you can. You can put that in your portfolio or online presence or something.
Maybe you should draw the line at solving THEIR problems for free. A little bit of that is OK bc it introduces you to what their work is like, but obviously if they want you to work for them for free all day, then that’s different.
It depends on the engineering company.
For the kinds that I work for, it would likely be a few rounds of interviews for senior level positions with both the bosses and key subordinates to determine if the fit is natural. It would be easy to tell if they could do a similar enough job based on industry reputation.
thoughts on preparing;
basic research about the company and verbalize some facts about them in the interview.
provide clear and concise answers to their questions.
ask them questions about temp/perm, team sizes, typical workday for the role, software/programs used, typical hours, THEIR expectations for first 3 months/probation.
,…
now depending on the job, I might already have a small package readily available with some jobs/things I’ve deployed but I would never go farther then that. they want me back for another interview, sure … taking tests? MMM… maybe… doing actual work? Ill walk out of the interview unless I REALLY need the money, or it’s triple my wage.
