First, they conducted an online test on Google Forms, which was the same as their 2024 test.
After this, I received a call for my first interview. The interviewer was a really cool guy and asked very basic concepts like pointers, OOP, classes, and databases. The interview went well overall.
Then, I got a call for the second interview with the team lead. This one was quite different. The interviewer was throwing LeetCode-style problems at me without providing any proper instructions or constraints, expecting me to write the most efficient code. For example, at one point, he just said, "Find all the anagrams in the string." That was it—no further clarification. The actual problem he was asking me to solve, was to find the number of substrings of string s that are anagrams of string t.
After that, he asked me basic OOP and database concepts, similar to the first interview. Then came the analytical reasoning part, which was even worse. He asked me to solve an analytical problem but didn't provide proper instructions. When I asked for clarification twice, he ignored my request and instead started bragging about how only one out of the 50 candidates he had interviewed had solved it. To top it off, he then started counting 30 seconds, expecting me to solve the problem within that time—without even fully explaining it!
My advice to interviewers like this: Please learn how to conduct a proper interview. Clearly state the problem, provide constraints, and maybe do some LeetCoding yourself to understand how vital well-defined instructions are in problem-solving.
Final note to HR: Instead of keeping candidates in limbo with vague responses like "You are under consideration," just be transparent. If someone is rejected, tell them directly. It's far better to provide closure than to leave candidates guessing. Honest communication goes a long way in maintaining a good candidate experience.
