Grilled on the phone...then asked to come for an in person

Yesterday I had a phone interview with a prominent bank for a summer intern front-office position. I do have a contact at the bank who helped hook me up with the interview. I'm a sophomore Econ major (not business school) of a target. This bank's intern program is almost exclusively made up of juniors who they look to potentially hire full-time. I'm not exactly experienced with phone interviews, but personally to me it sounded like it did not go well and it felt to me like the interviewer didn't consider me a viable candidate.

The woman interviewer on the other end grilled the fuck out of me. She questioned why I wasn't in the business school at my college and even threw in an unexpected technical question that by luck I happened to know and was fully stumbling when I answered. The interview was about 40 minutes and she pretty much stated that my qualifications and experience were not a match for the position. Then at the end of the interview she asks whether I can come in for an in-person interview in about a month, which is a week before the intern program is supposed to begin.

Not sure what to make of this. Was this just some hardline phone interview that was like a stress test? And I have no idea what to make of the in-person interview the week before the intern program begins.

It almost seems to me like they're not really a fan of my resume, but were basically forced into giving me an interview because of my contact.

6 Comments
 

that's weird... Can't really think of why she'd ask you to come in a week before the internship begins

Because when you're in a room full of smart people, smart suddenly doesn't matter—interesting is what matters.
 

"The woman interviewer on the other end grilled the fuck out of me. She questioned why I wasn't in the business school at my college and even threw in an unexpected technical question."

Damn, dude. Are you okay?

 

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if you like it then you shoulda put a banana on it

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