Someone reached out to me on LinkedIn and pitched this job to me. I was extremely open about my experience and was reassured that it was enough. I did my homework, but felt that they were asking questions that indicated they were looking for someone with a computer science background when I was told they were looking for someone who could handle the customer relationship more so than the technical side. They said they had to “pull” answers from me, which in all honesty was the case on a few question’s because I didn’t have the answers they were looking for. That combined with the less than personable interviewer made for an extremely uncomfortable hour. I believe they want someone with a computer science background who is extremely experienced specifically in grocery supply chain management software implementation and are being forced to settle because they are realizing that that’s not realistic. I also believe that the person who reached out to me knows this and in an attempt to fit those expectations, is pushing candidates to bend their experience to fit them. I have literally won awards for my relationship management skills. The president of my company comes directly to me when he is looking for “white glove service”. They explicitly said during the interview that they wanted someone more on that side of the field. However, they did not get to see that side of me because they were asking extremely textbook development questions. My experience supporting integrations and my ability to understand how to guide a customer through an API has never put me in a situation where I needed to explain to a customer’s developers the concepts of a REST API. It is completely within their right to have a very specific experience requirement, but I think they need to be more up front about those expectations. I also think they need to reevaluate what questions they are asking if they are looking for what they say they are looking for. I didn’t have a chance to shine here because the interviewer’s demeanor from the start made it very clear that they had no interest in me. I am marking this as difficult because of my experience compared to the questions they asked. For someone with a computer science degree and a software implementation background, this would have been extremely easy (as long as the interviewer is actually interested in you).