Ask Lemmy

More recent than the other posters here.

I had a job interview for a huge company that I was super excited about. I had applied to an entry-level job position, and they even contacted me and told me that my profile would match a non-entry position more closely, so my process was transferred. I was nervous, but excited!

The interview was remote, which was not usual (this was pre-pandemic! Around 2018 I believe). Once they arrived, I was surprised that they didn't want cameras on; it was a fully audio-based interview. Whatever, I thought, I'll just do the interview anyway.

It didn't go very well, as I was just a silly kid straight out of university with no interviewing experience, but I thought it wasn't catastrophic or anything. I still do. They asked me a couple of questions about my industry that I had no idea about unfortunately. I still tried to answer as best as I could, but I could tell my answers were not the ones they wanted. The dude was nice anyway and told me "that's OK" whenever I didn't know an answer.

A couple of days after the interview, I get a call from a very nice HR lady and she said "unfortunately you were not selected for this position, but feel free to apply for other positions in our company!". I was a bit sad but wanted to make use of this as a learning experience, so I asked "do you have information as to why I was not selected?" or something to that effect.

She said: "let me see... It says here they were not looking for someone with your profile...

... Oh! Also, you were googling the answers to questions you didn't know, as we heard you typing"

This broke me. I had done no such thing! I started trying to tell her that was not true (and that if it were, I would have gotten the answers right!). But I quickly realized that it was a losing battle. They had made their decision, and I was just wasting their time. If only they had turned on the camera I could have evidence that was not true. But I decided not to further sully my reputation and just said "Thank you for your time, I hope to talk to you again".

Since I did not get that job, I applied to and was accepted into a PhD programme so I guess that was a pretty important moment in my life. I am about to finish my PhD and that company is one of my options afterward, so I sometimes wonder if they still have that lie on file.