First was a recruiter phone screen. The technical interview was a panel of three people: the engineering manager, and two software engineers. The software engineer that asked the bulk of the questions was almost a half an hour late and seemed somewhat disinterested in my answers. I got along very well with the first two people who were on the interview, but when the interviewer who was late finally showed up, I noticeably felt the mood change. He had me re-answer several of the same questions that he had missed by being late, and insisted I answer the questions again after telling him that the other interviewers (who were still on the call) had asked the same thing. Huh, guess they need me to answer each question twice.... Is this really a good use of anyone's time?
I understand that they wanted to pursue another candidate, but showing up really late to my interview, then rattling off a bunch of interview questions (many of them repeats), and sounding disinterested when I made little jokes or asides like I had been doing with the original two interviewers, just left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Please have your interviewers be on time so that they can see the *entire interview* rather than basing the decision on the 20 minutes or so that they actually were there. Because the interviewer missed the introductions, all of the relationship-building conversations from the beginning of the interview, and several technical questions, I can't help but think that this could impact the company's decision on hiring a candidate.
