Declined interview after accepting

tom_e · 13 Oct 2021 at 07:49

Bassmansam said:
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.

VBA maybe not, but the rest is fairly "basic" Excel knowledge if you're a heavyish Excel user. Says the man who gets lost trying to work stuff like that in Excel so he just dumps it into a database and does it in SQL instead

Martynt74 · 13 Oct 2021 at 08:25

I agree, VBA is probably more specialised but the rest is fairly common and what i'd class as "Intemediate" excel, especially these days when Excel is used so heavily.

dlockers · 13 Oct 2021 at 08:27

VBA definitely not but I guess they are testing to what extent you need Excel coaching. Unfortunately the best Excel coaching comes from on the job experience. I remember looking on in awe at my line manager 9 years ago at his skillz, but it didn't really go beyond knowing the keyboard shortcuts for selecting cells, vlookups, countifs etc.

Anyway Excel is just basic programming so if in doubt, Google it and copy paste. I wouldn't worry as it is easily picked up.

Martynt74 · 13 Oct 2021 at 08:31

dLockers said:
Unfortunately the best Excel coaching comes from on the job experience.

True, you can go on as many courses as you want, but until you have reason to use those functions in practical examples a few times you just learn and forget stuff.

Bassmansam · 13 Oct 2021 at 10:49

I have pretty much managed to complete the original task now thanks to the suggestions in here but i wanted to ask what you guys think about circular references.

I was having trouble getting a formula to work until google told me i could turn a setting on that allowed these and now the formula works but why isn’t it on by default? The formula hust checks if the monthly payments + plus money received in the prev year don’t go over the total cost of the course.

Dolph · 13 Oct 2021 at 11:48

Bassmansam said:
I have pretty much managed to complete the original task now thanks to the suggestions in here but i wanted to ask what you guys think about circular references.

I was having trouble getting a formula to work until google told me i could turn a setting on that allowed these and now the formula works but why isn’t it on by default? The formula hust checks if the monthly payments + plus money received in the prev year don’t go over the total cost of the course.

Circular references can be rather problematic if you don't explicitly intend to use them, which is why they are off by default, as the number of cases where using them is intended and desirable is very small. It's also an all or nothing setting.

dlockers · 13 Oct 2021 at 12:32

It is very rare that the logic is correct if there is a circular reference.

Bassmansam · 13 Oct 2021 at 13:26

dLockers said:
It is very rare that the logic is correct if there is a circular reference.

it does do what i want it to do though so it must be??

dlockers · 13 Oct 2021 at 14:00

Bassmansam said:
it does do what i want it to do though so it must be??

Now you're talking like a real programmer :cool:

(not an insult, just how half of the programmers in the world operate. No idea why this works - but if it does, great!)

GhostWKD · 13 Oct 2021 at 14:06

Bassmansam said:
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.

Depends on location really. When I last filled a role this sort of level (analyst role, 1-2 years experience) was in my previous team that was central london based, salary c. 30k and I was a little surprised we filled it if I'm completely honest.

If VBA is on the job spec with that task & salary bracket I'd expect it's a nice to have rather than a must.

Its amazing how much you can do with a little excel knowledge really - long time ago I worked for Vodafone and did the financial forecasts using a sheet per month and a macro to flow it through a probability model. Remember it well as I ended up bringing my gaming computer to the office as it ran the probability flow macro about 10x faster than my laptop at the time... not sure that would happen in this day and age

Sheff · 13 Oct 2021 at 15:47

It's not related to the question but I'd recommend using index/match or xlookup instead of vlookup - it'll save you headaches in the future.

Bassmansam · 13 Oct 2021 at 16:47

Interview has been rescheduled for Friday morning. This time it is in their office that is about 2 miles from my house, their main office is near London Bridge.

I am the only candidate so its only mine to lose now. 4 days a week wfh as-well so that would be great. It is a bizarre situation though to be given a second chance, they must have really liked me from the first interview.

Dalandius · 13 Oct 2021 at 17:15

Good luck!

Steampunk · 13 Oct 2021 at 18:23

Bassmansam said:
Interview has been rescheduled for Friday morning. This time it is in their office that is about 2 miles from my house, their main office is near London Bridge.

I am the only candidate so its only mine to lose now. 4 days a week wfh as-well so that would be great. It is a bizarre situation though to be given a second chance, they must have really liked me from the first interview.

I've seen some weird situations where they ask you stuff you can't possibly know to see where and how you will fail. If you will do research or say you'll don't know the answer but you know how to go find out. Basically trick questions not expecting you to know the answers, but how you deal with it.

Diddums · 13 Oct 2021 at 21:42

Steampunk said:
I've seen some weird situations where they ask you stuff you can't possibly know to see where and how you will fail. If you will do research or say you'll don't know the answer but you know how to go find out. Basically trick questions not expecting you to know the answers, but how you deal with it.

In my line of work, there's a particular company which has a technical aptitude test as part of their interviews. I interviewed for them about a decade ago for a role as maintenance plumber. For the uninitiated, this involves anything from unblocking toilets to refitting entire bathrooms. Basic stuff that pretty much anyone can either do, or find out how to do and then do. The questions on their questionnaire involved things like calculating the airflow required in an office of A x B dimensions with an AC unit with 2500 BTU with the external condenser located 18 floors up in a riser which also has the mechanical services running through it, ie. hot water pipes. I could've asked him for all the variables and calculated the actual answer but I asked the chap what he was recruiting for. He told me a maintenance plumber so I pointed out that these are the types of questions answered by a consultant on £60k a year, not a plumber looking for £30k.

I've been headhunted many, many times since then and every time I've heard that it's the same company, I've said I'm not interested. As said above, a job interview is a two way street and anyone looking to employ someone to do £60k work on a £30k salary should be offering a hell of a lot more money. It's amazing how many companies try this on, and generally they end up with people who can crunch numbers, but can't replace a siphon in a cistern - and it always shows.

@Bassmansam make sure this is the right job for you, and don't lie on any tests.

Good luck

Bassmansam · 13 Oct 2021 at 23:18

@Diddums i have certainly learnt a lot about nested formulas over the past couple of days, i do enjoy this kind of challenge if it can take a while to get my head around it. I’ll have a better idea after the interview, if i have a bad feeling like comparable to the situation you mentioned i can always reject it.

cheers

Steampunk · 13 Oct 2021 at 23:19

Diddums said:
I've been headhunted many, many times since then and every time I've heard that it's the same company, I've said I'm not interested. As said above, a job interview is a two way street and anyone looking to employ someone to do £60k work on a £30k salary should be offering a hell of a lot more money. It's amazing how many companies try this on, and generally they end up with people who can crunch numbers, but can't replace a siphon in a cistern - and it always shows.

Absolutely true. Asking a candidate to jump through ridiculous or pointless hoops tells you something about how the company treats people, and it's likely to keep going that way. Like companies that constantly mess you about it in the interview process, it should give pause for thought. If they can't organise a sensible interview process, they may be a pain to work for.

Rroff · 13 Oct 2021 at 23:22

dLockers said:
Now you're talking like a real programmer (not an insult, just how half of the programmers in the world operate. No idea why this works - but if it does, great!)

One of the greatest feats in programming is literally that - fast inverse square root.

dlockers · 14 Oct 2021 at 08:37

Rroff said:
One of the greatest feats in programming is literally that - fast inverse square root.

Brilliant.

For those interested/unaware:
https://medium.com/hard-mode/the-legendary-fast-inverse-square-root-e51fee3b49d9

dowie · 14 Oct 2021 at 14:58

Bassmansam said:
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.

LMAO, in that case this bit...

Bassmansam said:
I then started to think this just isn't worth it, it is 1.5k less pay than my current job,

... is quite likely total nonsense. Just ask for more money if/when you complete the next task which let's face it isn't likely to be too different to the first and/or if anything might have been made easier. clearly, they're not exactly overwhelmed with candidates.

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.

Having a take-home exercise for an interview is pretty standard these days in various roles, OP should have pushed back if not free that weekend, the recruiter gave him a heads up and if comms are all going through the recruiter then OP doens't know if a hiring manager has said "Is he free to do a take-home exercise this weekend?" and maybe the recruiter has gone into salesman mode and said to OP "hiring manager is going to set you this exercise this weekend" etc.. not leaving it as open for an objection. It's always open for an objection though if they've just sprung it on you.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "out of hours" - take-home exercises are inherently going to be completed "out of hours"/on the weekend as candidates are often already employed.

@OP, next time you get something like this, if you're going away for a weekend, don't just say yes and then find you're struggling late on a Sunday evening, say no, tell them you're already away all weekend so won't have time and ask to schedule it for another weekend else you're doing yourself a massive disservice. Though also, if you know well in advance you're going to be going through a process in the near future that will require this then maybe keep a weekend free where you can say to them I'm free to receive the exercise on X date.

Ditto to things like exploding offers - if you get an offer from one place and you're still interviewing elsewhere and/or waiting for a counter at your current employer then push back - "you must accept by X date" is often BS especially if you know full well you're not going to hear back from company 2 by that date (though can be used to get them to hurry up and potentially get a nice offer from them too).

If I were you I'd get a copy of the latest Walkenbach Excel book and make a bit of spare time on an upcoming weekend for the next exercise they set you.