It’s a typical example of a gaslighting interview. The first two introductory interviews were very nice and I had a positive impression that it’s a small family-like team. They gave feedback immediately during the interview and the communication via email was very caring and fast. Much better than you can expect. But this impression worked only because of positive feedback. The 3rd round was a technical interview. For this round, I gave my code example. It was not possible to give a real example from work, because it is forbidden by employers, so I said that I can give a small education project, which doesn't have the perfect code, but it's enough themes there to discuss. After confirmation, that they are not expecting a perfect code, I sent the link to GitHub. It is very difficult to give negative feedback directly during an interview correctly and not cross the border to gaslighting. Because the interviewer should estimate if the candidate fits the company or project, but don’t estimate the person or his/her skills. Here are some examples of expressions in this interview, which should be avoided: - “You have superficial knowledge ….” - “You made a better impression on the first round in comparison with today …” - “I wouldn't trust you with a task ….” - “Your learning process will take longer than by others …” - “In the best case you can qualify as a junior, but I need to think a lot …” - etc. I would expect something like “for this role we are expecting more experience in …”, but not “when I saw this, ha-ha, I thought …”. So, in my case the borders were crossed. At the end of the interview, the interviewer forgot the goal of the interview (understanding if the candidate's experience suits the project or checking if it’s comfortable to work with the candidate) and just quickly listed all points, which he found, without discussing it. It was like a code review, with checking grammar in the comments. The second interviewer, one of the team members, not only didn’t ask any questions but didn't want to give a self-introduction at the beginning. He said one small sentence and after additional pointing from the first interviewer, that he could at least say what he is making in the project, he said one more small sentence. So, I’ve got an impression that he was forced to be here or that the decision was made before and he thinks, it's a waste of time. It is complicated to evaluate the technical side because even though the interviewer has good knowledge, he was not able to formulate the questions correctly and answer the candidate's questions. Typically for an interview situation: the interviewer gives the task, the candidate clarified it, and after getting a full image, the candidate gives the answer. Here it was more like the interviewer has his own concept, he gives some not always right hints, and the candidate should guess. If the candidate, tries to clarify or doesn’t guess, the interviewer speaks quickly or gives negative feedback with scornful emotional coloring, like “… if you don't understand even that ...”. Furthermore, it is very important, also in positive feedback, not to compare the candidate's behavior with pointing to the gender. Even in a positive context, it’s still sexism. In conclusion, I can say, it was a bad experience and I can't recommend your company further.
