Language fumble in Superday
SO, today I had a superday interview at a bulge bracket. One of my interviews was going well, when one of the interviewers asked me about the languages i put down on my resume. I had put conversant in italian and spanish. Frankly, it'd been a while since i spoke either of those langugaes. he then proceeded to speak to me in italian, then spanish. Both times I just studdered and wasn't able to answer the questions he asked. He then said I should update my resume then joked about it. Other than that, the interview went well. Is the language fumble a complete deal breaker?
Unless if you completely aced everything and your resume is amazing, then you might have a chance. Otherwise he probably thinks you fabricated your resume and it'll be the end of the road for you.
It really depends on how awkward that part of the conversation went and how much the interviewer is going to contribute in the group's discussion regarding your candidacy. I could see this being a major red flag in your candidacy if the interviewer was someone very senior and the incident you described was an awful stopping point where you couldn't utter a single word back to him/her in Italian. Think of it from his/her perspective -- you have the ability of truly verifying the candidate's listed skills by speaking to him/her in Italian and they cannot deliver at all. For me, I would be very skeptical of everything else on the resume and the candidate's ethics. I've been in a similar situation where I was interviewing a FT analyst candidate who listed "Proficient in French" on his resume and I asked about his summer in French. The guy gave me the classic "deer in the headlights" look and could not reply with a single word in French. I dropped the topic at that moment (no need to rub it in) since my mind was clearly made up about him. While it didn't end up mattering much (others in my group did not like him either), it had an impact on me and made up my mind. That's why the level of participation of that specific interviewer in the discussion of your candidacy may make a difference. If your interviews with everyone else went fantastic and this particular interviewer isn't actively participating in the dialogue, the event may never come up or be brought up as an off-the-cuff trivial remark for some humor. I am not trying to give you a false sense of hope here, just explaining how this could not matter at all in the grander scheme of the superday or really work against you. Either way, always be fully prepared to explain and demonstrate anything you have listed on your resume.
I'd really like to hear your point of view on this: I've been studying Mandarin for a few years in the classroom, and have listed my skill as "intermediate conversational proficiency." Do people expect me to be able to conduct the interview in Mandarin? Would I get dinged for responding to a question by saying "I don't know what you mean / I don't know how to answer that using Mandarin" in Mandarin.
Did you show some semblance of knowing the language? People are rusty and have had languages listed from when they were more fluent (e.g. when you were taking advanced Spanish in college and now are two years removed from the last time you had a dialogue), so I think it's understandable if it's clear that you at some point knew it and need practice.
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