great idea to post this in the forums

Actually I met another person on a local forum has exactly the same experience as I do. They even stain/ broke her portfolio during the interview.

I am posting here to see how to deal with these kind of arrogant people during interviews.

wow. if tis were a world-famous firm that blew the doors off of everyone, then it still would be awful, but i've never even heard of this place, so i must say that unless there's something i'm missing from this 'picture', it's a pretty terrible one. even if you don't think someone is right for your firm, you can still treat them like a human being. terrible.
hopefully your next interview goes better, but then again, maybe you'll get this job.. maybe that guy is just like that, even if he likes your work..

People who can't be civil for 20 minutes in an interview are pretty unlikely to be conscientious, respectful employers. Screw this guy - architecture firms are hiring and life is too short to work for jerks.

It a bad experience but it's also funny because the lady who met with me in the beginning. She looks like she is scared of her boss. She really looks like she belongs in a battery shelter instead of a professional woman in a arch firm.

Send 'em a bill! Just relax & see what happens, The guy could be a jerk, or he could have his own little 'test' going on w/ you. Either way, keep lookin' around, kid. You'll get the right one.

never one to be concerned abot money, MysteryMan.

not to be devil's advocate here, but it seems you took a wrong turn in answering his "what have you been doing" question. Instead of elaborating on your experiences in school, interest in architecture, and helping your dad with his exhibition, your answer suggests that all you've been doing is scouring the want ads -- in which case it would be reasonable (though still snarky) to ask you his follow-up.

I also wonder if the uncomfortable silence while looking at your portfolio could have been alieviated by you interjecting a comment or two about your favorite projects, which may then have led to a more balanced discussion of your abilities as an architect.

It's too easy to stereotype Pricipals and Owners as big scary overlord assholes, but keep in mind that these folk are running a business and are generally very busy. And yes, there are real jerks out there and I'm not defending them -- but keep in mind too this was at the end of the day and you have no idea how that day went.

It was definately a bad interview, but I wouldn't put all the blame on him. There is a great art to interviewing on both sides of the table. Chalk this up as a learning experience and think more about how to control your own interview in the future.

echoing db's comments, an interview is an opportunity for you(prospective employee) to demonstarte more than your design skills. if the silence was uncomfortable, demonstate that you recognized that and take control of the situation. you probably should have made some quick comments about projects as he was paging through the portfolio.

well said db. Often the interviewer will reflect the level of input from the interviewee. For interns there is not the same pressure to select appropriate personnel as opposed to salaried technical positions so that may account for the couldn’t give a shit attitude. I agree with the ‘what have you been doing question’, you may have come across inadvertently as the type of candidate that is scouring the ads to prostitute your services. That may be true but keep it to yourself.

Take control and direct the questioning to your strengths. Put this one down to experience.

having your portfolio looked at is always awkward. sometimes they'll ask for an explanation and leave you rambling for 10 minutes with no response. other times they'll say nothing and plainly want no commentary from you. it's painful but normal.

I once went to an interview where the principal was lecturing me about how they didn't hire "clock watchers". He then asked me if I was a "clock watcher". I was stunned. The interview had been going swimmingly up until then. Whats more the guy had an enormous digital clock behind him on the wall. It had the temp., air pressure, and times for Tokyo, NYC, Moscow, and Frankfurt. The readout was at least 12 inches high and mounted at eye level. In short, it was difficult NOT to watch this clock.

Sufficed to say, I didn't get the job.

I would've asked his assistant to "step out for a drink" and left the asshole sitting there holding his dick in his hand.

in an interview you should always show up armed with at least 10 questions about their firm. you should interview them AS WELL AS them to you. not to mention an interview where the employer talked all about his firm is the interview they always remember. (aren't we all narcissists?!?)

while you look at projects in the portfolio, discuss how your skills and designs have made you the "perfect" hire. with that comes your research of the firm before going...know their projects...go vist one or two of them...look at their bread and butter and the "great project"...

formulate your questions for their firm showing how your education will help...not just computer programs etc, but understand their theory...etc. stuff you CAN NOT get from a website. make them informed questions...not just how much am i gonna get paid.

ok off my soap box...read interviewing books, etc. it is a skill.

once a while back i had an interview for a very senior position at a design build practice.....what the hell it was david hovies firm. and of course hovey is toooooo important of a person to partake and so the 2 dweebs interviewed me [they are about 10years my junior at least], 2nds in rank did it with a hr guy. well not only arriving late [them] they took phone calls during the interview, left the room [and assistant came in and said ...dweeb 1, so and so called and said when your free , please ring him back as it was not important and dweeb 1 said -- well i call him right now. dweeb 2 followed. then they procededded to describe the job which is something someone with 3-5 years of experience can do blind folded. and this is all speculative housing which is really formula [i have designed and built 6 hr residential towers in 3 different countries so clearly i have experience]

now hoveys firm is not design build as we in shit-cago are lead to believe, he is really a contractor developer as he only performs services on sites he owns and all the stuff is really formula - repeat. drawings are good design development set only.

i dont want to continue the story about what i did in the interview but i changed my agenda and went for it hard, i had decided very quickly i wasnt going to take anything on the table so i needed to think quick about how to 'go for broke' - it was fun i must say. perhaps the final straw was that i told them i had been on an aia jury for design awards and did not think their project [which was on the wall of the conferance room] was worth any consideration.[this was true - the project was shit]

now having interviewed and hired probably 50-100 staff over the years i can only recommend if the most basic level of curtisy is not given by the interviewer -- walk away and dont even think twice. if they call you just say no thanks- it reprepresents just how they would treat you in the office setting.

i was ready to send off a long letter to hovey directly about these 2 absolute idiots who are representing his firm but quicker than i could send it off i got a 'were not interested letter from them-the next morn.

I think that the best way of putting this is... there were three of you in that room to fill the conversational void, and the only one who seemed to be doing their best was the assistant, within the limitations of her position. Some people are conversational black holes, but if you want them to learn anything about you, you've just got to put it out there. If they think you're too much of a chatterbox and don't hire you, oh well. They definitely won't hire you if you don't tell them what you can do.

It's hard to say, since of course I wasn't there and didn't get a reading of the mood and demeanors of the people involved, but from what you've written it sounds a like there might have been a communication problem between the two of you and this may have frustrated the interviewer a bit, to the point that he might have formed a snap judgement and decided he didn't really want to continue conversing with you.

I think he was trying to ask you what you've been doing professionally for the past six months. In other words when you answered that you applied on that day because that's the day you saw their ad, that's not really the info he was looking for. He wanted you to tell him if you'd had a job for the past months - or been working on competitions, or been out of the country, or whatever. The answer you gave him could have given him the impressions that A) you didn't understand him and B) you haven't been doing anything for six months. When you didn't comprehend his meaning clearly he may have just decided to call it a day.

As far as the time you spent waiting (ten minutes each for two different people) this is not at all unusual or considered an unreasonable wait time, and it's certainly not unusual for someone else on staff to interview you for awhile before the principal talks to you (if he talks to you at all.) It sounds as though this assistant talked to you quite a bit about your background, so there wasn't any need to repeat that info with the principal unless he specifically asked.

I feel that it's unprofessional of you to name not only the firm but the name of the assistant and to criticize her on a public site.

actually archimax, I've gone back and re-read your other threads, and it may (unfortunately) all tie back to poor interviewing skills. I'm not meaning to offend, or suggest that you are not a good hire - some people are great workers, and still interview badly (my mother is one of them, I know how this goes). But it seems that practicing your interviewing may yield some substantial benefits for you, and could explain why you are being offered such low salaries, and come into a company not knowing whether or not you'll be paid for your overtime. Write out lists of questions to ask the company in advance. Also think of the questions they're likely to ask you - and "what have you been doing for the past _____" is a really common one if your work/school history shows a gap of longer than a month. Practice the answers to these questions either mentally or out loud. Make sure that no matter how rude they are, you don't get flustered by it, because chances are, they don't know that they're being rude.

Actually I am not the only one who has a bad experience interviewing with this firm. I met another person online who also share a similar if not exact experience. One of the questions that was offensive and rude was she is asked what nationality is she? Do you have a green card? The reality is she was born in the US as well as holding a degree from UCB, so she does not have any problem with her English.

Can you post their web site, I’m intrigued as I can't find it?

I agree with rationalist. In your other thread a lot of your trouble seems to be that you accepted a job without even asking about many of the terms and company policies first. On the AIA's website in the intern area there is a list of 30 basic interview questions that you could use as a guideline www.aia.org/idp

As far as your friend's experience: I agree that it's not great for the firm to ask what nationality she is before they've asked if she's a citizen. But firms must ask everyone if they're a US citizen (and ask to see proof) and if not whether they have clearance to work in the US. That's a federal law.

Here is my story... =)


hi! my career counselor sent me the past messages, and i was SO SURPRISED to see the message about ib+a because i just interviewed there yesterday as well, and the experience was almost exactly the same!

so i did get the call on monday (after i JUST sent in my resume over
the weekend) and got asked to come in tuesday morning. i had plans that morning so i suggested another time, and the person on the phone was very reluctant to reschedule me for anything else but finally gave me an afternoon interview and asked me to consider starting as soon as Wednesday.

so i went in there, and at first the office manager interviewed me. she didn't even want to see my portfolio or cad sample even when i laid it out on the table. then she asked me the same questions 3 times (and she was eating and answered 2 phone calls through this). The nice thing was that she told me "a word of caution, my boss is very difficult to work for" (i do appreciate the honesty). Then, like the last message, she got up to go "find her boss" and he finally strolled in, shook my hand and answered his phone call. After about 10 minutes on the phone, he finally said hi. The first thing he asked me was “what is your nationality?” I have never been asked that before and could’ve sworn that this was an illegal question. I naively answered my ethnicity, and he said “so what, you have a green card?” and then I cleared up the miscommunication and he stared at me and
blurted “so your AMERICAN”. And then the conversation went on like so.

By this time, a young intern-type person came in to carry in his tea and he told her to bring in his cookies too. He basically said that his firm is “not a place to relax” but you’ll learn more than anywhere else.
And he did acknowledged that he is arrogant.

And like the last message again, he flipped and tossed through my portfolio and in fact damaged part of it. And after a while, I just sat there listening attentively, nodding and smiling. He asked “what is your natural facial expression?”… “because you have a smile on your face that looks like it hurts.” And of course, call back Friday for “the results”.

I came out of that interview almost in tears, thinking that this is how
I should be treated for entry level.

ummm...nobody should be treated like that, or accept to be treated like that. I had a principal tell me he hated the department I came from at my school...although he had just finished telling me how great he thought I was. But all he could manage to do was bash my Interior Architecture department. I finally told him, "look, that department is partially responsible for what you like about me... Without it you wouldn't see what you're seeing..." STAND UP FOR YOURSELF!

entry level or not, that is just plain wrong. i had a similar experience a few months ago.

i am relatively new to this industry, but have valuable experience in related industries, so interviewing with architect/design firms is a newer experience. this is my experience from one of my first firm interviews i went to.

i had an interview with a relatively large architectural firm. the interview lasted something like 2 hours. i had a cad test, did fine. had a written exam and then another test. no problems there. i was thinking to myself at this point, is this the way most firms are leaning towards now with testing so much?

so after all my testing, i had a sit down q and a with the HR person that originally contacted me to come in and interview. i sat down, a good 10 minutes later they entered. showed my portfolio, had good conversation about my experience. then...the interviewer made a comment about some particular locations(cities) on my resume where i had worked. began to ask ?s concerning the town that i grew up in. apparently this individual was from a town nearby. then, the individual made a comment about the bag i was carrying to the interview. a designer bag(noted only because this is where the interview takes a horrible turn) the interviewer then proceeds to degrade me, stating such remarks as "what do you need to work for? the area you come from is one that someone does not neccessarily need a job." i was dumbstruck. was this person serious??? how the hell am i supposed to respond to a comment like that? then the comments about the bag came into the conversation. "that is a very nice bag you have" confused, i said thank you. the derrogatory comments kept coming. as long as i now felt completely humiliated for reasons i didnt know, i decided to not defend myself, but rather be the better person and let the expression on my face do the majority of the talking. after several more rude comments, i was asked if i had any questions. i simply smiled with a f%$# *$& type look and said plainly, no, i think you have answered anything i could have possibly ever wondered about your firm. and then at the conclusion i was told it was a pleasure meeting me(um sure it was) and that i should hear something within the coming week. i got up and left, with tears starting to come to my eyes.

i wish i would have asked not to be contacted for if i had to work within a firm that condones behavior such as what i just sat through, it is not an environment that i would ever want to be a part of. then got up, and left. because i realized after i left, i am a human being, not some punching bag. my integrity and dignity is worth more than any job.

ironically enough, i received a phone call about a week later offering me a position within the firm. i never even sent a thank you note. and didn't bother responding back to their offer. if i let myself go through that much verbal abuse during one interview, how would my employment go? i certainly did not want to find out the answer to that question.

my advice to you, do not ever let anyone treat you like that. it was wrong for me to sit there as long as i did and take the verbal caning that i did. but i vowed to never let that happen again. if your gut tells you this is going badly, then you know this is not the place for you.

Yes, it is illegal to ask an applicant's nationality (or ancestry, race, religion, marital status, whether the applicant has children, plans to have children, etc.) Note though that if the applicant introduces these subjects that the interviewer can ask certain questions - for instance IF the applicant mentions children THEN the interviewer is allowed to ask about daycare provisions and such.

On the other hand, the interviewer is required to ascertain whether the applicant is a US citizen (or otherwise legal to work in the US) before offering a position. I'm not condoning the interviewer's actions in this thread, but it does seem from his response - "so you're AMERICAN" - that this may have been what he was trying to ascertain.

If the person had been denied a position after this interview then they would have had cause to file a discrimination case (of course it would probably have become a he-said-she-said situation that would be difficult to prove) but since she was in fact offered the job there is little to be done about it (except perhaps send a link to this thread to this firm.)

Actually....in most states, it's not illegal to ask questions about nationality, marriage status, etc. It's merely illegal to not hire someone based on the answers. There are a few states that have specific prohibitions against those questions, but for the most part, they can *ask* anything they want. If they ask if you're married, and you answer "yes," and then they don't hire you, you have to prove that was the reason they didn't hire you (or if they ask if you're Christian, and you say yes, and they don't hire you, etc. etc.). It's hard to prove that's the reason you weren't hired, even if they did ask the question.