I used to interview all the time. I thought it was a fun, important process, so they kept giving them to me… until one day a candidate stormed out. We had a panel on one side of the table that had devolved into one-upping each other on who could ask the best brain teasers. Finally the candidate literally said, “Fuck this.” Then got up and walked out. HR asked us WTF and we shrugged and blew it off, but I knew why. We all knew.

Sometime after that I changed my tact into making interviews conversations to get to know each other instead. If I did send someone to a whiteboard, I always got off my ass and joined them up there. Made it a collaboration exercise and never asked any bullshit. Did that for maybe six months to a year and got some awesome people from that process…

At the end of that stretch, HR sat in on one and saw the process for the first time… sometime later I stopped being asked to interview. No reason was given, the invites just stopped coming in. We kept hiring people but I wasn’t a part of it anymore. Coincidence?

He wanted that job!