Declined interview after accepting

Bassmansam · 12 Oct 2021 at 12:21

Hi All

Feel a bit crappy this morning. I had an interview for an MIS analyst job via teams last week which went well and was scheduled to have a second in person interview today at 10am.

On Friday i got a call from the recruiter with an update saying that the hiring manager would be sending me an excel based task to complete over the weekend. I had a busy weekend planned so i was bit worried about what this was task was. I received an email with the task at 11pm on Friday, it was only on Sunday that I got a chance to sit down and have a go at it(out all day Sat).

Theres a bit more to to it than in my example so i managed to get about 60% done then I just couldn't figure out the rest(see sheet). Last night i was trying to figure it out but no joy and i went to bed frustrated. I woke up at about 2am after a few hours sleep just trying to think of solutions, I then started to think this just isn't worth it, it is 1.5k less pay than my current job, the only reason I was interested is because its closer to home so my mind was made up at that point. I sent an email this morning saying I was no longer interested. The recruiter called and said he was dissapointed ect which I can understand, I told him that I felt i coudln't give a good account of myself because I didnt complete the task fully + lack of sleep I just thought it would be a disaster.

I would say I have intermediate excel skills. I know how VLOOKUPS, some formulas like IF, SUMIFS, RIGHT , LEFT , MONTH to name a few.
The task involved reconciling two sheet, one with predicted earnings and one with the earnings received so far. I've uploaded a simplified version of the sheet. I've described what I got stuck with on the sheet itself.

I took today as annual leave aswell and told my boss i was going for a filling, i don't know whats worse, the feeling of failing this or the thought of having a filling. Excel file below if anyone wants to help out.

https://easyupload.io/nz6wm9

tom_e · 12 Oct 2021 at 12:28

A lot of the time these things aren't expected to be completed, it's just a good way of seeing how you work and where your current skill level is.

Bassmansam · 12 Oct 2021 at 12:36

tom_e said:
A lot of the time these things aren't expected to be completed, it's just a good way of seeing how you work and where your current skill level is.

yeah i guess, really want to what the solution is now so I can forget about it.

CaptainRAVE · 12 Oct 2021 at 12:37

I honestly wouldn't feel bad about it.

dlockers · 12 Oct 2021 at 12:41

Are you genuinely asking us to complete your interview assignment?

Bassmansam · 12 Oct 2021 at 12:44

dLockers said:
Are you genuinely asking us to complete your interview assignment?

Well not entirely, I'm asking if theres formula i could have used or is it something a bit more advanced like VBA. Not that it matters now as i'm obviously not getting the job, but i'd like to know what i should have done. You know, like when some one asks for help on stackover flow or in our own programming subforum here.

peterwalkley · 12 Oct 2021 at 12:57

An interview is a 2 way process. If you weren't happy then that's fine. Better to drop at this stage than waste time later on.

Martynt74 · 12 Oct 2021 at 13:00

You would likely need some form of IF statement. I've not spent too much time, but i'd have likely

Inserted a row above and put an actual data that relates to the column header
Use an IF to say if the inserted date > Completion date do X, otherwise do Y

Although it's difficult to say without seeing exactly what you were sent, but i wouldn't have said it was overly complex for an analytical type role.

GhostWKD · 12 Oct 2021 at 13:05

Intrigued so took a very quick look, a nested if statement would do the job (albeit not sure if theres a cleaner way maybe). It's a solution of how you'd append on the £1k at the end also; essentially if that month is > course finish month then 0, if it's = course finish month then monthly payment plus £1k, if it's < course finish then monthly payment.

Edit: As the chap above said, new row above with hard date on it, maybe even just month/year along with a new column turning completion date into month/year also, then tidies up the if statement massively if using those.

Bassmansam · 12 Oct 2021 at 13:09

GhostWKD said:
Intrigued so took a very quick look, a nested if statement would do the job (albeit not sure if theres a cleaner way maybe). It's a solution of how you'd append on the £1k at the end also; essentially if that month is > course finish then 0, if it's = course finish month then monthly payment plus £1k, if it's < course finish then monthly payment

Yeah i guess thats it but the column headings don't have a date in them thats why thought maybe vba has to be used so you can have assign a date to those columns if that makes sense.

Martynt74 · 12 Oct 2021 at 13:11

Bassmansam said:
Yeah i guess thats it but the column headings don't have a date in them thats why thought maybe vba has to be used so you can have assign a date to those columns if that makes sense.

You'd have 2 options

1- Insert a row above with a date which corresponds to the column heading. This way the same formula can just be dragged along
2- Adjust the formula in each column so the one in the August column would say "31/08/21", then the formula in the September column would say "30/09/21"

GhostWKD · 12 Oct 2021 at 13:19

Martynt74 said:
You'd have 2 options

1- Insert a row above with a date which corresponds to the column heading. This way the same formula can just be dragged along
2- Adjust the formula in each column so the one in the August column would say "31/08/21", then the formula in the September column would say "30/09/21"

Third option is as they are all 2021 you could use column numbers to give the months also - eg if you used COLUMN(J1)-2 for the August data that would give you 8 which you could compare to month() on the completion date and you could drag that across as column K1-2 would then be 9 for September etc

But that said - I work in analytics and have been on the other side of these things; Absolutely wouldn't worry about with adding rows/columns as needed (if anything it helps show how you approached it)

Bassmansam · 12 Oct 2021 at 13:20

Martynt74 said:
You'd have 2 options

1- Insert a row above with a date which corresponds to the column heading. This way the same formula can just be dragged along
2- Adjust the formula in each column so the one in the August column would say "31/08/21", then the formula in the September column would say "30/09/21"

Thank you, I think I would have probably opted for option 1. I think i just panicked near the end of the evening as it was getting late and then started wondering if this is something they wanted done in VBA or just using normal formulas. Onwards and upwards..

@GhostWKD thanks also

Bassmansam · 12 Oct 2021 at 14:30

The recruiter just called me and said the other candidate also had trouble with the task and cancelled his/her interview. He then asked if i would still be interested if an alternate task could be given. I gotta admit after realising what the solution is I feel pretty embarrassed but I probably would accept another go as it is so much closer to home as opposed to my current 90min commute each 3x a week.

bJN · 12 Oct 2021 at 20:12

I'd probably reiterate that it wasn't exactly healthy to be sent the supposed task at short notice, out of hours with an expectation it would be completed over that very same weekend; and whether that's indicative of what to expect should you be successful in getting the job. Pushes the ball back in their court a bit whilst still maintaining a foot in it with open dialogue.

dlockers · 12 Oct 2021 at 20:38

bJN said:
I'd probably reiterate that it wasn't exactly healthy to be sent the supposed task at short notice, out of hours with an expectation it would be completed over that very same weekend; and whether that's indicative of what to expect should you be successful in getting the job. Pushes the ball back in their court a bit whilst still maintaining a foot in it with open dialogue.

I mean take the first chunk of this as the advice. Any org dishing tasks out last thing on a Friday for completion first thing on a Monday is a big no-no.

Kenai · 12 Oct 2021 at 21:43

dLockers said:
I mean take the first chunk of this as the advice. Any org dishing tasks out last thing on a Friday for completion first thing on a Monday is a big no-no.

Almost like the real test was "will these candidates tolerate us taking the **** out of work / life boundaries"

Dolph · 12 Oct 2021 at 21:55

Kenai said:
Almost like the real test was "will these candidates tolerate us taking the **** out of work / life boundaries"

Or an overzealous hiring manager who is now getting a kicking from recruitment for having to sort the mess he created.

Rroff · 12 Oct 2021 at 21:56

bJN said:
I'd probably reiterate that it wasn't exactly healthy to be sent the supposed task at short notice, out of hours with an expectation it would be completed over that very same weekend

Increasingly these days with companies not just operating 9-5 it might be a critical to the function of the business - though you'd hope the pay and compensation was commensurate - though a lot of companies try it on as well.

I'm guessing they are desperate hence giving another chance as there aren't a lot of quality candidates queuing up for these kind of roles at the moment.

Sadly I know I'd just find it miserable in the longer run working in IT but at the moment with the current market you can pretty much write your own meal ticket if you are any good at it.

Bassmansam · 13 Oct 2021 at 07:09

I may be wring but i think part of the problem is they advertised this role as 20-25k. Is that normal for a job where they expect you to know vlookup , if , nested formulas and vba?

I have worked in a couple of university student records roles and we pretty much only used vlookup and in that job i was on 26k. Even my current MI role is 26.5 and i wasn’t expected to know any of the stuff listed above as they have taught me a lot of formulas i didn’t know and SQL.