If you enjoy wasting your time and being treated like a nuisance, this is your place.
Easily one of the most awkward and unprofessional experiences of my career. The "recruiter" was an external guy who had joined the company just a few months earlier — and it showed. Absolutely no tech background whatsoever, so the first call was just a glorified waste of oxygen.
Round two? Somehow even better. The "hiring manager" (another fresh hire — noticing a pattern?) showed up visibly annoyed, kicking off the interview by telling me his wife and kids were sick. Look, I’m human — I sympathize — but maybe don’t dump your personal miseries on a candidate? What's next, firing someone because your cat caught a cold?
Anyway, I powered through this trainwreck of an interview (over 90 minutes of keeping a positive attitude while he grimaced at the screen). Miraculously, he eventually cracked a smile! Major milestone unlocked! I even walked him through a project on GitHub, explaining the trade-offs I made; he nodded, smiled, and even said, "I like what I see!"
What a load of crap.
After the interview, I sent a polite follow-up email. Heard nothing. Sent another a week later — and finally got a rejection. The best part? The feedback made it crystal clear that the hiring manager hadn’t paid attention at all. Their "notes" described a totally different interview.
Chasing a recruiter for basic human decency is already bad enough. If you can't even manage your emails, maybe consider a different career path — perhaps somewhere involving less interaction with actual people.
But wait — the cherry on top? A few weeks later at a local meetup, I found out who really got the job: surprise! A former colleague of the recruiter. So unless you're already BFFs with someone inside, don't bother applying.
Save yourself the time, the frustration, and the second-hand embarrassment.