Interviewing at Bodybuilding.com really drove home the fact that interviewing is as much a skill as giving an interview. The interviewers were pretty clueless as to what they wanted for the interview. Indeed, the development manager threw in random, undesired programming technologies just to see who it might kick up. The preliminary interview questions went ok and were easily answered. However, then the development manager allowed an underling to conduct the rest of the interview. This individual had obviously been through interviews and had a vague idea how interviews were conducted, but completely fell apart when it came time to conduct the interview. His excuse was that clients can often be difficult to work with and can give conflicting requirements. However, most clients are at least halfway intelligent and have a vision of what they want. This interviewer had no such vision and was lacking even that much intelligence. And he obviously had come up with a couple questions he considered to be real zingers because he kept asking me questions *as I was escaping.* Before dismissing my experience as a bad day or even sour grapes since I didn't get an offer (I wouldn't have accepted if I had to work with this guy), I have had a similar report from two other developers who interviewed with Bodybuilding.

Writing code on the whiteboard in front of a developer panel. Length was approximately 3 hrs. The questions were around design patterns, database design, and methodologies. Got to meet the current staff and get a feel for what a day in the life of their work would be.