BEWARE top-tier finance talent...you will be subject to a director whose main agenda is to flaunt their technical knowledge (SQL, Databricks) as a means to belittle your own experience and serve as leverage throughout the interview process. A terrible experience with absolutely no respect for one’s time.
I was informed by the recruiter to show up to the interview and simply call the interviewer upon arrival to let them know I had arrived. Upon doing so, the director informed me that they were “in a meeting” and would be with me shortly. Little did they know I had literally just watched them walk into the building from lunch 2 minutes prior to my entrance as I was in the parking lot the whole time. This was my first red flag as it wasn’t until 10 minutes past the scheduled time that he finally welcomed me in (I waited 20 minutes in the lobby). We walked through the workspace looking for an empty room for the interview; however, the whole floor was essentially empty. It was a barren work area devoid of any personality that reeked of IT call center vibes with dozens of cubicles sitting empty. I counted less than 10 employees in my entire time there in a workspace that can accommodate hundreds.
The interview started off casual and informative. We exchanged questions and all was well. When the conversation turned technical, still all was well. There were some weird questions randomly mixed in like “Can you define COGS?” which again were easy enough. Then he brought up Databricks and asked if I had ever used it before. I informed him that I had never used it before (as I had mentioned to the initial recruiter) and figured that would be the end of it. Instead, he proceeded to flip around his laptop and said “Ok, but still try and give it a go.” Again, I reiterated that I had not used the platform before but I would definitely be interested in learning as I have an overall growth mentality. After that, the entire experience went downhill expeditiously. He had little interest in exploring my actual experience, but rather harp and focus on the singular aspect I was unfamiliar with. Ironically enough, a lot of the querying demands he was so laser focused on can just as easily be met using Microsoft Excel (Power Query + Power Pivots). Yet, he simply said “oh no Excel always crashes at 1 million rows so we can never use that” which made it clear he just doesn’t know how to use something as simple as Excel.
As the interview progressed, it turned into more an interrogation than an interview. When everything was said and done, we needlessly went 30 minutes over the allotted time as he wasted so much time trying to discuss hypothetical scenarios lacking necessary details yet demanding an extremely technical answer which is impossible to come to without said details. An unnecessary experience for a role that is entry-level in nature.
Overall, the director lacked the necessary tact to make a meaningful connection with me and quite frankly does not know how to communicate effectively. My only regret is not walking out during the interview as it was an absolute waste of time.