"Clean up on your desk": my experience of remote interview in Amazon
I propose to readers of Habrakhabr a translation of an article by software engineer Shivan Kaul Sahib , in which he shares his remote interview experience with Amazon. I think this text will be interesting to many readers, because, one way or another, in the future we all will have to pass a remote interview at least once in our life (testing, etc.).
Not long ago, I was interviewed at Amazon for the position of software engineer (SDE - software development engineer, software development engineer). I want to point out that I have a good attitude towards Amazon (for the most part, because people I respect work there). I tried to explain everything quite concisely without unnecessary philosophizing about privacy policy, about how to properly interview, etc., talking only about my experience, feelings and thoughts about everything that happens. If you think that the inconvenience in the process of applying for a high-paying job is not such a big deal, this is your right and point of view; in general, then this story is not for you.
During the second round of the interview, I needed to be online with a controller from ProctorU , an Amazon authorized company for remote interviews. The work of the controller was to provide technical support. He also had to make sure that I did not cheat. In the beginning, I needed to install several programs, one of which supported the interface for communicating with him and gave him access to my machine so that he could take control of my entire computer, including the mouse. After that, he closed all my running applications on his own (until this point, I didn’t understand how unnerving the movement was on someone’s pointer of your mouse cursor on your screen). Then he fiddled with the system settings, making sure that I could not take screenshots. Of course, my camera and microphone were also taken under his control. After that, “Big Brother” asked me to pick up my laptop and point the webcam at my desktop and said:
"Clean up on your desk."
')
I wasn’t sure I heard it right.
“Clean up on your desk, please.” [Amazon] requires that there be no written materials near you during the work on the tasks. ”
“Tidy” would have taken at least an hour to do everything right, since there were a lot of documents on the table that I did not want to lose or confuse their order. Therefore, half in jest, I offered to pass the exam on my bed.
“Yes, but first you have to show me the bed, remove the blanket and sheet, so that I can make sure that no cribs are hidden under them. In addition, you can not use paper and pen. And put your mobile phone away from me, but so that I can see it. ”
And here I am - in my bed, with my macbook on my lap, without access to the pen and paper, I am going through a remote interview, which was supposed to imitate the real working conditions! I was allowed to start after 5 laps: “raise your laptop and show your room 360 degrees” and “please show your floor, no, sir, you need to get out of the chair and push it away and then show the floor” . Between the two stages of the test is given only about 5 minutes to break into the toilet.
I started with the first part - Work Simulation. As I was told, this is necessary in order to assess how well I work in a team in a real-life scenario (hmmm). On assignment I had to comment on the things that will happen in the video, only it was not loaded. It took me 5 minutes to observe the video loading indicator, and I contacted my controller. After that, it took him 20 minutes to refresh my page. I suppose that if updating the page does not help 5 times, then the next time it is unlikely that something will work out, but he had a different opinion ... I waited some more, turned my fingers, hoping to use empty time for something useful (oh, ha -Hah, I can not, because the textbook is classified as prohibited "written material"). After an hour of doing nothing, I was fed up with everything and I said that I was no longer interested in this vacancy and did not intend to have an interview, I was not going to reschedule it, and I want to finish everything now. I was asked again several times and after affirmative answers that I was tired and I would not repeat it, they said that the Log Out Procedure was running.
I understood that I communicate with an ordinary employee. I understood that he needed to follow the protocol. So I waited. I asked every 5 minutes if I could leave, but I was asked to wait "just a few minutes." Finally, after about 20 minutes, realizing the absurdity of the situation, my patience ran out. I clicked on the “Cancel full access” button, turned off WiFi, turned on firewalls to the maximum and removed all the software that I was forced to install.
Everything that happened was a hard time for me. Unfortunately, I do not have any screenshots to be able to confirm all of the above. I wrote an angry letter, but, based on my past experience of communicating with Amazon recruiters, I am sure that I will not get an answer. This interview was like a nightmare. I remember that just a few years ago, when I wanted to train at Amazon, I was told that during the tests my webcam would keep a record accessible to the company. Then I was very indignant, because I considered this an invasion of privacy. And now I personally gave a third-party company full access to my car, because only in this way can I find a job at Amazon. If the video worked, I would continue the interview, because at that moment I was looking for work and I 1) do not live in the Bay Area (meaning The San Francisco Bay Area, - approx. Translator ) and 2) am not a citizen of the United States or Canada that is why there are not so many good and interesting tasks for programming.
The invasion of privacy has become quite an everyday thing.
...
<standard line that I didn’t know what kind of “explosion” would happen when I wrote this>
After the release of the article I was contacted by many people working at Amazon. They reported that at this time the company is reconsidering its attitude towards recruiting and “is no longer going to use the services of third organizations” when conducting remote interviews. Well, that they understand that you need to quickly respond to people's feedback. Thank.
[ A source ]
Not long ago, I was interviewed at Amazon for the position of software engineer (SDE - software development engineer, software development engineer). I want to point out that I have a good attitude towards Amazon (for the most part, because people I respect work there). I tried to explain everything quite concisely without unnecessary philosophizing about privacy policy, about how to properly interview, etc., talking only about my experience, feelings and thoughts about everything that happens. If you think that the inconvenience in the process of applying for a high-paying job is not such a big deal, this is your right and point of view; in general, then this story is not for you.
During the second round of the interview, I needed to be online with a controller from ProctorU , an Amazon authorized company for remote interviews. The work of the controller was to provide technical support. He also had to make sure that I did not cheat. In the beginning, I needed to install several programs, one of which supported the interface for communicating with him and gave him access to my machine so that he could take control of my entire computer, including the mouse. After that, he closed all my running applications on his own (until this point, I didn’t understand how unnerving the movement was on someone’s pointer of your mouse cursor on your screen). Then he fiddled with the system settings, making sure that I could not take screenshots. Of course, my camera and microphone were also taken under his control. After that, “Big Brother” asked me to pick up my laptop and point the webcam at my desktop and said:
"Clean up on your desk."
')
I wasn’t sure I heard it right.
“Clean up on your desk, please.” [Amazon] requires that there be no written materials near you during the work on the tasks. ”
“Tidy” would have taken at least an hour to do everything right, since there were a lot of documents on the table that I did not want to lose or confuse their order. Therefore, half in jest, I offered to pass the exam on my bed.
“Yes, but first you have to show me the bed, remove the blanket and sheet, so that I can make sure that no cribs are hidden under them. In addition, you can not use paper and pen. And put your mobile phone away from me, but so that I can see it. ”
And here I am - in my bed, with my macbook on my lap, without access to the pen and paper, I am going through a remote interview, which was supposed to imitate the real working conditions! I was allowed to start after 5 laps: “raise your laptop and show your room 360 degrees” and “please show your floor, no, sir, you need to get out of the chair and push it away and then show the floor” . Between the two stages of the test is given only about 5 minutes to break into the toilet.
I started with the first part - Work Simulation. As I was told, this is necessary in order to assess how well I work in a team in a real-life scenario (hmmm). On assignment I had to comment on the things that will happen in the video, only it was not loaded. It took me 5 minutes to observe the video loading indicator, and I contacted my controller. After that, it took him 20 minutes to refresh my page. I suppose that if updating the page does not help 5 times, then the next time it is unlikely that something will work out, but he had a different opinion ... I waited some more, turned my fingers, hoping to use empty time for something useful (oh, ha -Hah, I can not, because the textbook is classified as prohibited "written material"). After an hour of doing nothing, I was fed up with everything and I said that I was no longer interested in this vacancy and did not intend to have an interview, I was not going to reschedule it, and I want to finish everything now. I was asked again several times and after affirmative answers that I was tired and I would not repeat it, they said that the Log Out Procedure was running.
I understood that I communicate with an ordinary employee. I understood that he needed to follow the protocol. So I waited. I asked every 5 minutes if I could leave, but I was asked to wait "just a few minutes." Finally, after about 20 minutes, realizing the absurdity of the situation, my patience ran out. I clicked on the “Cancel full access” button, turned off WiFi, turned on firewalls to the maximum and removed all the software that I was forced to install.
Everything that happened was a hard time for me. Unfortunately, I do not have any screenshots to be able to confirm all of the above. I wrote an angry letter, but, based on my past experience of communicating with Amazon recruiters, I am sure that I will not get an answer. This interview was like a nightmare. I remember that just a few years ago, when I wanted to train at Amazon, I was told that during the tests my webcam would keep a record accessible to the company. Then I was very indignant, because I considered this an invasion of privacy. And now I personally gave a third-party company full access to my car, because only in this way can I find a job at Amazon. If the video worked, I would continue the interview, because at that moment I was looking for work and I 1) do not live in the Bay Area (meaning The San Francisco Bay Area, - approx. Translator ) and 2) am not a citizen of the United States or Canada that is why there are not so many good and interesting tasks for programming.
The invasion of privacy has become quite an everyday thing.
...
<standard line that I didn’t know what kind of “explosion” would happen when I wrote this>
After the release of the article I was contacted by many people working at Amazon. They reported that at this time the company is reconsidering its attitude towards recruiting and “is no longer going to use the services of third organizations” when conducting remote interviews. Well, that they understand that you need to quickly respond to people's feedback. Thank.
[ A source ]
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/322236/
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