The recruiter I worked with was very helpful and friendly. Everything went smoothly until the actual phone interview.

The phone interview went terribly. First, they called me five minutes late. They did not introduce themselves beyond their names, nor did they explain their roles. They jumped straight into the questions.

They started off with the "Tell me about yourself" textbook question, which is always a turnoff. You have my resume; why aren't you prepared?

They gave me a vague troubleshooting question. I respected this, as I believe they were trying to assess my troubleshooting steps as a QA. When I asked clarifying questions about what I was allowed to do versus what I wasn't, for instance, "Do I get access to the code, or is it black box testing?" they replied, "Yes, you get access, and this is black box." I attempted to answer with both scenarios in mind, but I could not discern over the phone whether they were receptive to my answers or if I should have been steered in another direction.

They then asked me a programming question and only gave me about half an hour to complete it. In that half-hour, I was asked to create a Stack with two caveats: there needed to be a "getMiddle" method that returns the middle element of the stack, and it must have O(1) access time. Naturally, for O(1) access time, an array would be ideal, so I used that. Although, ideally, I would use something like an ArrayList in Java.

Which brings me to my next point: When I asked, "In Java, there is a collection called ArrayList. Can I just use an ArrayList? I feel like that would be cheating, as it seems like it would defeat the whole purpose of the question," they told me they weren't experts in Java, despite the fact that I had informed the recruiter I would be most comfortable in Java. If I am going to take a programming test with someone, they should at least understand Java. It was poorly planned.

Anyway, as I was explaining my algorithm, I could tell from their voices that they were becoming impatient, perhaps because time was running out or because I wasn't arriving at the answer they were looking for. Twice, I had to whiteboard my algorithm step by step, and they could not understand it, for example, "Increment counter, go to array[counter], push() the element on," etc. It was a poor use of my time. It really sounded like they didn't want me to do something in particular, but since we were short on time, I think they just called it quits.

Finally, I did not get much time to ask about the culture because we started late. I asked what they enjoyed most about LinkedIn and what they could change about it. One of them said the good part was: "work with brilliant people, and the space is open so it is very collaborative." What they would change: "I want to learn from the brilliant people." This sounded very contradictory. If the culture is so collaborative, what is stopping you from learning? Did the interviewer just reveal part of her career plan? If so, does that mean my career plan will also have an obstacle: "There are brilliant people here, but I can't learn from them unless I put myself forward"? Is that really the culture I want to work in?

And since we started late, another group of people were waiting for the room, so you could tell they were in a huge hurry to leave. As an interviewee, it never feels okay to be rushed out of an interview.

After the interview, the recruiter emailed me a rejection, stating they wanted someone "more technical." While my solution may not have been the prettiest, it accomplished the main O(1) objective, and I don't know what else could have been detrimental to my technical skills.

Overall, what I gathered from the interview:

• They are unorganized.
• Not as open as they claim to be.
• A sense of stubbornness.

What I didn't get from the interview:

• My job role.
• Their job roles.
• Their day-to-day lives.
• Any sense of culture other than the negatives I mentioned above.
• What a great company they are.
• Any feedback about my technical skills. I've gone through multiple interviews, and the recruiters have always called me to tell me where I had fallen short and always encouraged me to brush up those areas and try again.

The questions weren't difficult at all. I think what was difficult were the interviewers and their stubbornness to find only the answer they were looking for. See above.