I just failed my dream job

Don’t sweat it bro, sometimes the job isn’t a good fit for you. It’s not that you suck, it’s that you and the job weren’t vibing.

OK, if there’s anybody on this forum who wanted to know more about me, well, you’ve just hit the jackpot. Here goes nothing!

Interview processes are broken beyond repair, people bring a ton of unjustified bias and unreasonable expectations towards candidates and it’s extremely rarely to “fail” an interview entirely through your fault only. 95% of the time both sides “failed”.

Here are some examples from the last several years of my rather colorful career:

• I’ve done miracles for some of my employers (their words, not mine) – like writing shell scripts to refactor big chunks of their code (without errors!) or make various financial reports spanning tens of millions of records in mere minutes – while I couldn’t bring myself to code a simple Phoenix controller with 5 actions while at other employers.

• I’ve made code that (almost) automatically generates tests that cover 90% of newly introduced modules by using other files (declarative programming, I suppose?) while I couldn’t bring myself to reverse-engineer a simple chat system spanning 10-15 files and then extend it.

• I’ve been passed on interviews because out of 12 expectations for a homework just 1 of them I’ve did very sightly worse than another candidate.

• I’ve been asked to answer the same questions in a questionnaire with 30+ questions twice just because an HR was stubborn and refused to read a reply to an email. I already passed their technical test and the VP of engineering wanted me but I told them to rely less on bureaucracy and not waste people’s time, so I passed them.

• I’ve had to code an entire homework live for 2 hours. Never doing that again, even though the guy was impressed and said I did fantastic.

• At the same time I’ve had a complete freeze during an interview when I couldn’t solve a relatively simple problem that required processing a lot of data that I couldn’t all load into memory. Can’t blame them for being unimpressed but I can and did blame them for not engaging in a discussion and focusing less on just one algorithmic task. (What was even more maddening is that the solution came done and baked in my head like 8 hours later…)

• I’ve had one of the most perfect work opportunities last year and I started and we parted ways only 4 months in because they wanted me to work on a crappy laptop (that they sent me) that had its deafening fans on at least 50% of the time and because the team was too busy to actually onboard me. I eventually muscled through everything (30+ projects) but it was too late by then. Still regret losing that one but in retrospect they were not a good team to have, and they treated people like they have to pass a rite of passage through hell so they deserve to keep the job. Still, the company and the problems were very interesting, and the pay was excellent.

• I also managed to fail a simple interview with a GenServer coding task. Why? Because I didn’t memorize how to code one. I was told I can Google stuff but it was visible that the interviewer decided against me after I solved the exercise after 2 minutes of reading the docs.

• On one of the most chill workplaces I’ve ever had I never managed to bring myself to be actually productive due to being in a very rough mental health spot back then. Ironically I and others were fired for completely different reasons: the company was a startup and the investments dried up.

• Another company switched from Elixir to F# overnight because the CEO had a lunch with a Microsoft Azure representative. Boom, fired.

• In my last job I’ve specifically told the technical director what I’m good at and what I don’t want to do. The team didn’t care, they gave me the stuff I hated regardless eventually. Couldn’t bring myself to even give a good explanation of a lack of progress on the standup meetings. Decided to leave after 3 months with them.

There are more (did I mention that I’ve had a colorful career?) but the point is: train yourself to let go of such accidents or occurrences. Both hiring and employer’s expectations can be severely detached from your reality and that’s very rarely your fault.

Just keep trying. It will be okay. Just don’t stop.

I’d frame it differently, @Ninigi - if you didn’t land a job you were well suited for, the ‘failure’ wasn’t yours (or at least not yours alone), but of a process that failed to elicit your abilities. A candidate-seeking process that places hurdles rather than realistically trying to investigate isn’t fit for purpose. That’s most extant processes in fact. Not that it’s easy to figure out how to do it better (and many responsible for hiring, at least those not full of themselves, admit a lack of faith in what they’re doing, which is exactly why just hiring someone you already know is for most the dream option)

@dimitarvp - thanks for your entertaining missive! Though I don’t for some reason feel quite ready for your level of public disclosure honestly I’ve done worse in the past few years and having made myself virtually unemployable (while broke and in my 50’s) have essentially quit the job market. Despite that, to echo your “Just don’t stop” point I was a pretty unlikely candidate for my last job - sheer persistence got me there.

Eh, I get it completely but you know what? I don’t care anymore. I’ve done pretty amazing things in my career but I’ve also been having a very tough period in the last 2 years. I am not ashamed to admit I have made some dumb mistakes. I am realistic about them but I also know that I wasn’t the only one who failed. Thus, if somebody reads this “confession” of mine here and figures I am a bad hire then IMO that’s a win for both of us: we won’t waste each others’ time.

I too am not at the height of my financial security and I still can’t care enough to try and hide my mistakes. I am younger than you – 41 currently – but I’ve already almost completely burned out on the “pretend you are perfect” front. I just don’t want to.

Contrary to what some of us think when we still don’t have a job and reserves are running out and anxiety hits… all employers in the world are NOT in fact a singular hive mind. Just keeping doing interviews absolutely will get you employed at one point. Glad you managed!

This is absolutely true. My last job kind of shocked me in how accommodating they were to difficulties I had at the time - this despite the fact that it was a small start-up where it mattered that everyone pulled their weight. Honestly at least here in Aus, a company wouldn’t have been as accommodating a couple of decades ago. Those in their 20’s and 30s are miles ahead of where ‘we’ were in kindness, openness, non-discrimination, etc.

I took an interview at Mongo out of college. I took 2 hr car ride, then 1.5 hr train into Central NYC. 4 back to back interviews without leaving the room. Final interview with a VP and we’re talking about my favorite data structure: Fibonacci heap. “Can you write the fib function on the board?”

Complete blank slate. Panic. I wasn’t able to do it. Mentally was drained and just completely blanked. I didn’t get the role and I’d wager that was a big contributing factor.

That was a dream job, although looking back I’m very happy I didn’t get it. I ended up somewhere better that, most likely, had a better outcome for me.

Technical interviews are often done to:

• filter out candidates that the company doesn’t want to hire for some other, arbitrary reason
• determine how obedient the candidate is (Will they work through an entire book of coding interview exercises?)
• make the the person doing the interview feel good about themselves

Assessing how competent you are as a programmer is not a real goal, the majority of employers would rather hire someone who is below-average skilled but willing to put up with long hours and un-paid on call work.

Don’t sweat it. I failed “coding tests” that I thought I bossed. One time the interviewer said they thought I used “unnecessary libraries” but refused to say which libraries were unnecessary. I really believe a lot of interviewers decide within 1 minute of face-to-face talking and, if they don’t want to hire you, will try to find something wrong in your code. Also I always blank on really simple questions and mix up words in interviews. Unnatural conversations.

Some fail an interview because they are too good, e.g. a too good fit for one of the interviewers position so they feel threatened.

Would you mind sharing the exercise or some slight variation of it not to give away where you applied?