There have been a lot of posts recently regarding how bad tech interviews can be. And we have all experienced bad tech interviews: the interviewer who shows up late, didn’t read your resume and is trying to subtly scan it while making small talk, asks you solve a dumb problem like “how to divide without division” or some academic errata, doesn’t really listen to you or provide guidance, and basically sees the whole thing as a waste of time and/or a dick-measuring contest.

But as an interviewer who tries very hard to make the interview process meaningful, something that constantly irritates me is interviewees with no respect for the process.

Here’s the thing: companies don’t usually pick junior developers for your interview. They go with seniors, and seniors by definition have the most complicated work and the biggest workload. So the time that is set aside for your interview is time taken out of that developer’s work day. If they’re responsible, it’s far more than just the block of time allocated to the interview itself: they need to read your resume, come up with questions to ask about your specific accomplishments and achievements, sift through their questions and toy problems to find a suitable one (with a backup in case it’s obvious you read the solution or practiced it before). Many of the people who work in tech are also not the most outgoing people so they have to psych themselves up to have a positive, cheerful conversation with a stranger. Then after the interview they need to write up their notes, and in some cases they then have to attend a committee discussion to talk about your performance, weigh feedback, and make a final decision.

And just so we’re clear, this time is rarely something you can enter in Jira. It’s just another thing you have to do in addition to the work you’re assigned. More often than not the interviewer doesn’t even get a say in the scheduling and just has to “make time”. They could be in the middle of fixing a particularly devious bug, or designing a complex system. All that has to get shelved so they can do your interview.

Yet so many people treat the process with zero respect.

I have interviewed countless people who have lied on their resume, or at the very least embellished their resume (I cannot tell you how many “Tech Directors” I have interviewed fresh out of college). You will get called on that. So why waste everyone’s time?

Most people don’t even have a story prepared. Everyone signs up for Interview Cake or Hackerrank and practices obscure problems but so few people sit down and practice talking about something they’ve worked on, some challenge they’ve solved, something they’re really proud of. That’s the first thing you’re usually asked. Have an answer ready. Be prepared for followup questions and to talk about specifics.

I have had senior engineer candidates who flip out when asked to write any form of code. How dare you ask me to prove that I can write a simple function, just look at my resume, full of unverifiable and undoubtedly inflated accomplishments!

I have interviewed surly, uncommunicative people who just don’t want to talk, and you have to constantly probe them to even finish their sentences. Yes, I need you to tell me more detail about what you actually did at the company: “I was a programmer in R&D” tells me nothing.

The other day I had an interviewee cancel 15 minutes before his interview and ask to reschedule. So I had him pick the time for the reschedule, then as the interview started he told me he had to leave half-way through. How could an interview go well under those conditions?

So yes, the interview process can be painful for the interviewee. Yes some people ask stupid questions, yes it’s tense and unnerving to write code under watchful eyes, yes the whole thing is stressful.

But your interviewer is a person too. Try to remember that.