I’m not sure how I feel about a recent interview experience I had:
I interviewed for a firm that listed AutoCAD and Revit in its qualifications. I drove a bit over an hour to the office. Before the interview, they handed me a physical application to fill out (there wasn’t one online when I emailed my resume and had to answer a bunch of questions from HR, then HR told me that they want to meet with me and to come with questions to ask) and then I wasn’t finished filling the application out and the hiring manager/lead came in and the interview started.
It was going fine but the interviewer kept checking the time because they thought they may have a separate meeting coming up soon in half an hour or so… so I thought I drove an hour to meet the interviewer for half an hour or less time to talk? (This also happened at a separate interview where I was double booked and the lead manager had to step out in the middle of my interview…) Why do they do this? I get they’re busy but if they are, then don’t have interviews at that time… so then interviewer steps out and sees that there isn’t a meeting so we continue our conversation. The firm mainly uses AutoCAD and is not at revit level yet, I’ve expressed i have more experience in revit and documenting and i have working AutoCAD knowledge in my apps
We have talked for an hour or so, and then the interviewer suddenly brings up administering me for a AutoCAD test. I get why firms may want to administer a test, but it is normal to just spring it up without warning? HR never mentioned it and throughout our one hour conversation never brought it up. The test consisted of converting an existing fit out into a new fit out and would require me to draft 2D lines, see my thinking of how to rearrange space, and then put views and notes on a title block layout to print… all in around 30 minutes
I woke up early to prepare interview notes, brushed up revit a bit the previous night, drove over an hour, talked for over an hour, it was around noon and i was hungry, and now i have this surprise test sprung on me. I haven’t used AutoCAD in a documentation sense or the software much at all in a while, drawing 2D lines for walls instead of just drawing out a wall with BIM was a bit to adjust to, then I had to quickly navigate and think of the commands, and then read the exercise prompt, and then brace myself mentally and navigate the file structure and folders, and basically half the time was gone already, then i quickly drew lines and put them on the right layers and did a basic layout. If they wanted to test my spatial layout skills, a pen and paper would the easiest to get multiple schemes out, designing on CAD is not efficient, and then 30 minutes gone by, interviewer came in to check and asked if i needed a few minutes, and then I couldn’t figure out how to get the drawing to scale on a layout sheet so when they came back, i just only explained the concept as is and they at least saw that the lines were on the right layers, but i probably flunked it in their eyes since I couldn’t place it on a sheet or finished efficiently in time, but honestly i think I’m proud that i was able to Godwillingly brace myself, kept my cool, and still somehow figured out how to draw something and follow the prompt somewhat and produced something in that short time without touching the software in a long time. After test, we shared some brief thank yous and that was that, no you’ll hear back next week of anything of the sort, they left and i finished filling out the app and dropped it off.
Is it really appropriate/professional for a surprise test to be administered without knowing beforehand? I was not aware of it going into interview, and I ended up spending past the amount of interview time at that office for 1 hr 45 min without prior notice or planning, and then I had to drive over an hour back… if I had known, I would have brushed up on AutoCAD instead of revit beforehand because realistically I’d try to learn as much as possible before first day at the job. I get that they document with AutoCAD only but that was not made aware to me before the interview so I couldn’t have prepared for that. Sure, maybe I wouldn’t be as bitter if I was actually super proficient at doing the task and documenting with AutoCAD and could do it all within 30 min… but the interview was almost cut short due to double booking, and then I had to stay way longer than I expected because I didn’t know there would be a 30-40 min test right after a 1 hr interview that seem sprung on, would there have been a test if they actually had to cut my interview short and leave for a meeting? Seemed disorganized and unstructured for a large firm with multiple offices
Overall, I don’t know how I feel about a firm that uses AutoCAD only to document when I’ve been in firms that properly use BIM. I feel it’s so much more complicated to redraw 2D lines for all the perspectives and views. I would fall behind on BIM and I feel that future jobs would require that more. Then of course driving over an hour back and forth is a major time consumer per day, especially when I am not sure if they do hybrid or flexible schedule, but prob not since it was never brought up in that 1 hr conversation, and of course this surprise test left a bad taste to test how much of a speedy cadmonkey I can be and a disregard for my time. I usually write a thank you email, but I didn’t this time because they prob wont want me now and I don’t know if i want it or want to still seem desperate to want it. Thank you for reading all this.
