Like something out of Netflix. The recruiter was lovely. The hiring managers were not. I interviewed first for an SE role at this distributor. The meeting was in-person and 70 minutes long. The hiring manager dismissed my SE experience since I worked at a vendor which he considered too easy. Apparently vendors can just kick back and let other companies do the work? My inbox would beg to differ. Anyway, I later received a rejection saying I was not seasoned enough. That's fine and not uncommon at all for an ageist industry. The issue is that I later interviewed for a junior role. Simply making 15 quotes a day. The interviewer did not care. I joined the zoom meeting. He asked me one question: do you know what this role is? I responded with a summary of the job description. He said it's just making quotes. I responded with a question about how many requests I might get a day. As he was answering, he stopped MID-SENTENCE to send a text message. I honestly thought I might be being recorded since it was like a prank or a scene in a TV show. I sat in silence watching this man on his phone in front of me for about 45 seconds before I faked a cough and then said "Excuse me. You were saying?" which seemed to snap him out of it. The interview took only 10 of the 30 minutes. I later got an email saying that I can't handle that level of volume. Even though he asked me no questions about that. It's clear they don't have respect for me or any confidence that I can complete a simple task.

The sales engineer interview includes a resume review, technical assessment, behavioral interview, product knowledge evaluation, customer interaction simulation, and a final discussion about qualifications and fit for the role. Not bad a few technical questions. Questions about the industry like Cisco, Avaya etc.