I had the worst screening experience in my several years of experience.

When I had the phone conversation and submitted my resume, I made it clear that I had no PHP experience. The first thing I encountered in the interview was a request to do a CRUD operation written in PHP. Typically, candidates are interviewed in the language they use most. I communicated this to my interviewer, but she did not take my feedback and proceeded.

Then, she asked me to complete a typical coding question. It turned out she was expecting an OO design, which she did not clearly state she was expecting. The third part went well because it was a straightforward SQL question, so there was no room for miscommunication.

In general, my recommendation is: if you want to hire top talent, ensure that your screeners have great common sense and communication skills. Also, try not to conduct language-specific interviews unless the candidate states that they are an "expert," and set expectations accordingly.

Unexpected PHP knowledge-based questions (it was not listed on my resume).