Do people interview like this to see how you respond when put into stressful situations? I remember I had an interview and an associate was rude, while the VP sitting next to him was kind, and then when my friend went in after, they switched roles. What's the idea behind this?
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Typically in my experience they just want to know how you react under pressure. Oftentimes clients are rude and difficult, they just want to be sure you wont react negatively when pose with such situations.
I think there's a difference between rudeness and being stern. I've had interviewers who were no-nonsense individuals and those who were disrespectful.
The disrespectful interviewers that I met usually revealed a few of their character traits in the interview. A long time ago, I had an interview where one person was being a dick and looking at his phone the entire time. I thought he was only testing me for the interview, but turns out he was actually a dick.
It's possible the associate saw an opportunity to use his limited power and was rude to you. Think about it, why would you treat someone in a disrespectful manner unless you're having a bad day/ are insecure/not a nice person?
No.
For proof that this happens, I had the same interviewer as one of my fellow interns. During my interview, the associate was a total dick to me and everyone else at the superday. During my fellow intern’s interview, he was really nice. The difference? We attended different superdays.
They really do act purposefully disrespectful sometimes to try and gauge how you respond to pressure (having an interviewer at a superday hate you), your ability to keep your cool, and if you’re able to still be friendly to guy who acts like he wants you escorted out of the office. All important qualities in not just banking, but the world in general.
They aren’t that smart or methodical - this is now a McJob
[quote="Incoming cfa level 1 charterholder"] I think there's a difference between rudeness and being stern.
I agree with this completely and took me a long while to be able to understand the nuances. Tough love, though necessary and constructive most of the time, has unfortunately been adopted by some egomaniacs who use it as an excuse to be rude or even abusive.
In terms of OP's original question of his interviewers' dynamics and What's the idea behind this? .... its a standard psychological technique called 'Good cop, Bad cop'. Commonly used to get you to open up to and trust the 'good cop'
I have come to find that most of the times someone is rude during the interview they are actually rude in real life . The culture is shifting guys, this isn't the 80's anymore :D
Pressure interview. They will push you a bit although no one should outright insult you
Agree with this. There is a difference with adding more pressure with additional questions. But if someone is an outright dick in an interview, that's not going to change once you take the job offer.
This goes both ways. If someone was rude to me in an interview, I wouldn't want to work there anyway.
Exactly, if the interviewer is rude why would you want to work with them on a daily basis?
Granted, they could just be doing it for the interview but why take the risk (unless you have no other options of course..)
During my Superday interview I had to meet with three groups. The last two were super nice and pleasant. The first one was tough. I sat down, and was instantly bombarded with technical questions. 5 minutes afterwards the interviewer was like "oh sorry I forgot to introduce myself properly" and from then on everything was super chill. I always felt like that basically he wanted to put me under pressure at first and then see how I react.
I've been the interviewer and interviewee (in ib). there's no excuse for being rude as an interviewer, period. You can be no nonsense but not rude. Being a jerk just to do some weird flex is a turn off to the best candidates and I've found that there's a pretty strong correlation between douchey interviewers and working at 2nd/ 3rd tier shops and said douchey interviewers generally not being that great at their jobs.
In my interviews, I’ve often felt that folks from HL’s restructuring team are a bit off. Have interviewed with those guys 3 times in a span of 7 years across different offices. Anyone Felt the same way? Never progressed past first round
Relax - they were just fucking with you.
I knew two dudes who loved to play good cop bad cop in interviews. At the junior level of recruiting there is a dime a dozen of similar people and the interviews are generally very dull. If you are going to be conducting the interview you might want to spice things up if you have any sort of humor in your back bones.
Yep, ESPECIALLY if you are a nontraditional candidate.
I had a BB interview where the interviewer was a complete a-hole. I asked at the end what they thought of me and they said I did really well?!?
I was extremely confused because after every answer I gave they sighed or just immediately moved on to another question, seeming extremely annoyed the whole time.
Pretty sure it's just to raddle you, though it was 100% not my style when I was recruiting people.
I take the opposite approach. I'm always friendly and I'll try to see if you get too comfortable and say something suspect. My goal is to see how you act in the real world, not when you have your guard up in an interview setting.
I have never met a person who was a dick during the interviews but a nice guy in person. But I have met plenty of people who were dicks in person and dicks during interviews. That is across 7 years in banking at two different firms/groups that people rave about on this forum.
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