Declined interview after accepting

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.
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I got a job (internally) for which I was selected to interview as "the Excel guy" in my team, for a position in a data analyst team. I had a good rapport with the manager interviewing me, but I had never done a technical part of an interview before. I was left alone to mine a large chunk of data. I completely panicked and just used filters instead of any formulas and even though it was pretty bad technically the interviewer recognized (a) I didn't just do nothing. (b) I was a good fit personality wise and (c) I could learn by myself (based on my previous excel work in the team I was coming from, which, yes, did use formulas!

So I would definitely always try even if you are worried of giving a good account of yourself.

As an epilogue both myself and my boss have left the company in question but we're still mates outside because we get on so well.
 
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dowie said:
Congrats! :) Did you ask them to raise the offer a bit so you’re not taking a pay cut?
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I did ask but it was a no unfortunately. But when i weigh it up i'll only have to travel into London once a week or other office 2 miles from home. I'll be saving a fair bit of money and plus the travel time.
 
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.
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Don't worry... I was rejected for a job after passing 5 interviews, because the organisation wanted to change the job spec at the last moment and I didn't qualify.

I argued that I fully met their original requirements and it was unprofessional to change it this late in to the game. The organisation insisted on advertising at a £5k higher salary (to attract a candidate with that level of qual), so I told the recruitment agency that approached me that I was ****** off. After about 3 weeks of radio silence I had a call to get offered the same job... weird :p

Anyway, congratulations. To be honest with you... if I knew I was the only candidate at that salary I'd have pushed for that extra £1.5k... are they really going to quibble over paying you an extra £29 a week gross pay?
 
EVH said:
Don't worry... I was rejected for a job after passing 5 interviews, because the organisation wanted to change the job spec at the last moment and I didn't qualify.

I argued that I fully met their original requirements and it was unprofessional to change it this late in to the game. The organisation insisted on advertising at a £5k higher salary (to attract a candidate with that level of qual), so I told the recruitment agency that approached me that I was ****** off. After about 3 weeks of radio silence I had a call to get offered the same job... weird :p

Anyway, congratulations. To be honest with you... if I knew I was the only candidate at that salary I'd have pushed for that extra £1.5k... are they really going to quibble over paying you an extra £29 a week gross pay?
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That is ridiculous, glad you got offered the job in the end!

They wouldn't budge on the salary but when i think about not having do a door to door commute of 90mins 3x a week that is enough for me!
 
Hades said:
Then I was surprised to be offered another job a few years later after I refused to do their test. It was a mangement role but at the end they handed me a pen and paper and asked me to write some SQL. I was a little rusty but could have done it with a bit of effort. But I told them if they wanted me to write SQL then they were interviewing the wrong person, or interviewing for the wrong role. I handed the pen and paper back to them and assumed I just blew the interview. I was offered the job then next day.
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I had something similar when interviewing for a VP role at a large investment bank, except it didn't result in a job offer :). It transpired during the interview that they wanted someone who was very hands-on with day-to-day activities but that wasn't really clear from the job title or advert.

I also did a practical coding test with Amazon (again, for a management role) but that was frustrating because the questions were badly worded in relation to the field names (I had to ask questions and present assumptions) and there was no actual backend to test queries against like I normally would with SQL. In the end I didn't finish the exercise. It's also a bit awkward doing an online coding exercise, you get awkward silences/pauses where you feel like you need to speak or write something down to let them know you are still alive. I know it was something I could have dealt with comfortably in a real world environment.
 
HangTime said:
I had something similar when interviewing for a VP role at a large investment bank, except it didn't result in a job offer :). It transpired during the interview that they wanted someone who was very hands-on with day-to-day activities but that wasn't really clear from the job title or advert.
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Ah, that's an issue in finance vanity titles! I guess if you were in a management role elsewhere and expecting a management role there too that could be a surprise. It is silly; at a big tech firm a VP is just below C level, yet in a bank, it's pretty much anyone aged mid-late 20s onwards! Worse still is GS where the "VPs" in London are "EDs".
 
Starting the job on Monday, looking forward to it. Today by courier i received a HP laptop with bag, samsung 22” screen and a motorola g50.

Feel much more valued as an employee already, my last job i used my own pc, installed teams/ 8x8 voip software for calls on my personal phone. Oh and we used remote server so when there were more than 20 people using it, it got reallt laggy. Assuming this laptop will have a vpn but will have to wait for them to call me on monday with the password to find out.
 
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