r/interviews • u/KeynesCrackpot • 13h ago
Bombed interview. Spiraling
Ugh venting to get this off my chest. I feel pretty senior (7-8 years of experience) but haven’t interviewed in the past two years. I feel like I shouldn’t be bombing technicals.
Company asked for a take home assessment to be completed in 3 days, over the weekend. Asked HR how this should be formatted, no response before the deadline. Responded to everything with written responses, submitted, interview was scheduled two weeks later.
I follow up with HR three times asking if the focus on interview will be on the take home, no response. I have a busy work week with no time to prep and my heart stops when they ask to present this during my interview.
It’s a terrible start and I’m shaky. I couldn’t figure out the question one guy was asking, spent 5 minutes clarifying before I understand and rattle off responses. He smiles and says “that’s perfect”. That’s probably the only highlight.
It’s downhill from there with them guiding me through responses. This is an area of financing that’s my weak point, I’m not actively managing it in my current day to day. I know they’re gently guiding me through mistakes but it feels awful.
I realize some of my simple calculations are messed up. My sensitivity tables are likely showing extreme values but I can’t explain it well. I miss high level questions.
I’m just so overwhelmed and upset. My feedback at my current job is good, but i feel like I’m viewed as a team player that will get work done at the expense of my own growth/upward learning. Sigh. I’m spiraling and can’t stop thinking about how badly I bombed.
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u/ivegotafastcar 12h ago
I feel this. I bombed a contractor interview. I thought I did great, used the STAR answers on the questions, seemed genuinely interested, asked questions, formed a connection with the hiring manager… the feedback was I could do the job but I was all over the place. What? We had a conversation.
I think I know where I derailed it. It was when I asked if they had an AI program in the future to automate the job since the job I was being hired for could 100% be done by a CRM LLM. I’ve been training on them plus have a background in automation. I think he was thrown that I even brought up AI. He made a point at the end to let me know they don’t use AI at all and fire people for it. So much for bringing new ideas to an interview.