The Bizarre Interview Experience with an Irritated Candidate
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The following experience is from a chat with an experienced hiring manager, when we were chatting about bugfree.ai
This incident unfolded during a coding interview with a candidate from a second-tier tech company, boasting seven years of experience as a backend engineer.
The interview began with the customary introductions. However, it quickly took an unexpected turn as the candidate expressed his impatience, openly criticizing HR and previous interview rounds, clearly not pleased with the process.
Deciding to cut to the chase, I introduced a classic medium-level backtracking problem from LeetCode — a problem from the top 100 list. The candidate, struggling, asked numerous clarifications and barely managed to write the title and function name. Despite my numerous hints, he couldn’t formulate the core logic of backtracking.
After 40 minutes without progress, it seemed like he was waiting for me to hand him the solution on a platter. I had to call it off politely, intending to close the interview, but this triggered the candidate. He argued that the interview was supposed to last an hour and threatened to file a complaint for ending it early.
Reluctantly, I extended the interview by another 20 minutes. As expected, the situation didn’t improve. Before I could officially end the session, the candidate lost his temper, uttered an expletive in Chinese, and abruptly ended the video call, leaving me in a state of bewilderment.
In the end, this made my interview feedback straightforward — a clear rejection due to behavioral issues.
