

Ask HN: Fake job interviews in NYC? - 8dot5by11

In the past couple of weeks, I have had a handful of job interviews where it felt "fake."  For example, job interviews where:<p>1) enthusiastic questions are aimed to pick candidates’ brains for fresh ideas.<p>Or<p>2) interviewer appears annoyed with interview process, gives vague introduction and asks lame &#38; predictable questions. (Which translates to: "insider" candidate has already been selected, so stop wasting my time)<p>So, the question is, are there such thing as fake job interviews in NYC?<p>Thanks in advance.
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EPG
I have seen it in Product Management interviews repeatedly.

Interviewing with TripAdvisor is basically agreeing to an intellectual
property/idea anal probing. They do it for sport and never fill the positions.

Probably because the company is fresh out and their products are getting blown
away by mobile startups...

That was in Greater Boston area...

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veyron
Can you identify a few places you interviewed with? Also, are you using a
recruiter?

I'm going to try to limit my response:

I don't consider (1) to be "fake" in the sense that thought-provoking
questions aren't meant to be fake. I like asking open-ended questions because
I want to be sure that I am dealing with creative people who can think on the
spot. In some industries (e.g. finance), being able to quickly think of a
solution is important. And yes, I am much more impressed when people can
answer in ways that I did not think about (and I've landed offers at many
places precisely because I was able to think of clever solutions that the
interviewer didn't think about beforehand)

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kshcho
Agreed that (1) is not by definition intelligence gathering. It's a fine line,
but it should be pretty clear if you reflect carefully on what was asked.

Using finance as an example (since veyron mentioned it), it's one thing to ask
an interesting brain teaser, or even, for example, the candidate's perspective
on how a market will evolve over the next 5 years (e.g., natural gas). It's
another to try to ask them what trading strategies they've used (which they
could bring up more subtly by saying something like "what are some interesting
trading strategies for natural gas you think could work"), or how they
interact with their clients.

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veyron
It's perfectly ok to ask about which trading strategies will work, if you are
being employed as a strategist. It's also perfectly ok to ask about how they
interact with clients. In both cases, a person is being entrusted with the
firm's assets or public image, both of which should be carefully guarded.

As a hedge fund, you wouldn't want to bring on a strategist unless you had
some clear idea about the trader's process, and in that discussion you must
analyze a strategy. Likewise, when you entrust someone to deal with firm
clients, you trust that the person will not jeopardize relationships.

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kshcho
I won't say it's common practice, but I'm aware of people at a few companies
(not just startups, but some Fortune 500 ones as well) who use "interviews" to
gather competitive intelligence and ideas.

Given your (1), it sounds like you might have run into that at least once.
What industry / role were you talking to them about?

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8dot5by11
I had an interview where they invited me to the next round as long as I
prepared a presentation on the competitive landscape and state of the industry
which only revealed my Powerpoint deck skills. I got the job. But then again,
it wasn't in New York

