Worst interviewer ever.
Applied online, then had to do a recorded over-the-phone interview, which consisted of answering a few questions then interpreting two sentences from Russian into English, and two sentences from English into Russian. In about a week I was scheduled for another over-the-phone interview, this time with a recruiter. I've never had such an unprofessional interview in my life. Despite a brief email exchange exclusively in English, the second interview was 100% in Russian. This in itself wasn't a problem, but letting me know ahead of time would have been nice.
The recruiter never introduced herself, didn't waste any time with chit-chat or rapport, just launched into an explanation of the pay structure, which is variable based on the length of calls. She spoke as quickly as possible, presumably to make it harder to understand, and demanded to know if the pay would work for me without giving me a moment to think about what she had said. She then stated that the position was for a medical interpreter and fired off a list of the hours they would need the interpreter to work, again demanding to know if that schedule would work for me without giving a second for thought.
The job posting didn't mention medical-specific interpretation, so I was surprised and honestly unprepared. When I told her that I didn't realize they were only looking for medical interpreters, she insisted it was on the website and I should have known. The rest of the interview was interpreting sentences from English into Russian. To her credit, the recruiter read these sentences slowly and clearly, giving me every opportunity to interpret them to the best of my ability.
I interpreted the sentences poorly, so was not surprised there was no offer at the end of the interview. The surprising part was the recruiter's attitude throughout. It seemed like she didn't want to hire me from the very beginning, as if she didn't think an American could possibly speak Russian well enough to interpret, and was trying to make the interview as uncomfortable and difficult as possible. Had the first part of the interview been conducted at the same pace with no conversation but in English, it still would have been very difficult and awkward, so the fact that it was all in Russian wasn't the issue.
If she didn't want to hire me in the first place, why waste everyone's time with a poorly done, rude interview? She could have just emailed me and said "Thanks, but we're going with another candidate".