S&P Senior Applications Developer Interview

Interviewed Dec 2010 in New York, NY (took 3 days)

I interviewed with S&P for a Sr. Application Developer position. For the most part, it was a negative, but also important experience. It was important because it was an experience like no other, and that in itself provided a valuable experience that I can take with me and learn from. I interviewed with 5 total people: recruiter, hiring manager, teammate 1, teammate 2, and hiring manager's boss. Of these 5 people, it was the recruiter and hiring manager whom I liked (and I think also liked me). The teammates 1 and 2 I thought did not respect my experience what-so-ever. They drilled me with irrelevant technical, pointed questions that only someone who spends their fridays and saturday nights at home would know. They expected rote memorization in my answers. That is something, I am proud to say, I do not endorse. Moreover, they didn't let me talk about my experiences and what I've done in my career. They kept drilling me with technical questions. The hiring manager's boss (the last guy I interviewed with), just seemed like a jerk. He's probably the one who gave the orders for the nature of the interview. Also, they gave me a 50+ question technical exam. This exam you cannot do well unless you do significant preparation on beforehand. I think conducting such an exam, once again, indicates they do not respect your experience and believe that using such metrics indicate someone's intelligence and ability level. They will use the exam as a bargaining tool at the end of the interview. It's kinda deceptive. In the end, even if I got a job offer from S&P, I would have declined it. I took the interview in the first place more as a primer for other interviews I had at different firms. No point in working for these kinds of people.