This is Why Hiring is BrO-/ken

and Millennials just don’t get it.

It’s 9:30am Monday morning and I arrive an hour early for todays interview at this really modern 5th Ave building. I scope out the surrounding area and find a nearby Starbucks where I settle in to read my emails and get my game face on. The crowd in Starbucks is interesting at this hour, young urban professional chatting about nothing important. Two grande bolds later and I am ready to go.

I return to the building, enter the lobby and take notice of the decor; everything is high end and very white. After security checkin, I enter a very small elevator and up we go to the inner lobby where I sign in and wait. Everyone who passes by has a youthful euro look and while I am dressed in a very nice Ralph Lauren black label suite, already I start to feel uncomfortable. Maybe its just my imagination or maybe it’s just the coffee kicking in.

Shortly I am greeted by a tall, slim young man, who takes me on a quick tour of the floor. He points out the pool table, the video game room and the kitchen where you can find catered lunch every day. I am lead into a smallish conference room where I will be meeting with several people throughout the day.

The room is very white with whiteboard walls and a white conference table. There is a white framed large screen TV on one wall. And there is a glass wall that looks out on the open developer space that is laid out like mission control, close quarters organized by team. The conference room is a little warm, maybe by design or maybe its the coffee again.

Now its time for the first meeting. The first guy I meet looks like a terrorist. He is wearing an army green military style sweater and is bald with a long beard. He speaks with an accent, but as it turns out looks are deceiving. This guy is the nicest person I speak with all day. We have a wonderful conversation about technology and architecture and I suddenly feel much more comfortable.

The next meeting is with a guy that has fangs. You don’t really notice it at first but after a little I find myself trying to see it they are cosmetic. He starts asking some interesting questions and asks me to jump up and write some code on the white board. The problem he asks to solve is not particularly hard but I find that I am have a little trouble coding on the whiteboard. At this point another guy walks in with an accent and he says he is just there it observe.

The conversation switches to architecture but my mind is still busy coding on the white board and trying to figure out fangs. Things are going south or maybe I realize that I am just hungry as Its well after lunchtime now. So finally we break for lunch and by the time we get to the lunchroom the food is mostly gone. Looks like a bunch of leftovers and some soggy salad. I grab some cookies and a club soda. And I am told we are halfway done. Really.

The next hour is spent with a guy that looks a little like Buddha. He is supposed to demonstrate the product and sorta does except it works really poorly because there are Wi-Fi / network issues, so sad. He then asks me how I would code out some varying table thing, back to the white board to waste some more time. It is not really going well now and I am beginning to get a headache.

The final interview of the day in this white room is spent with very white guy, he is actually an albino. He tells me he is here to talk about culture. For whatever reason his eyes are flipping back and forth he cannot focus as we speak. By this point the distraction is ridiculous and all I want to do is get out. After another 20 minutes I am released and I decide to walk uptown and clear my head. I am at a loss to understand the events of the day. Suffice to say, guess that jobs out.