Contacted by in-house recruiter on Linked-In regarding a Senior .Net Developer Position, and had a screen interview. Called back and spoke to head of recruiting department. After a few days, I was told I didn't have enough experience for the position, as I expected, and they would keep in touch. A month later I get contacted again to see if I was interested in a "mid-range position" since they had a hard time filling the Senior role. I agree and the next week, I had a in-person meeting with a Senior Developer, a Applications Manager, and 2nd level managers.
1st part was technical, with a guy asking things like "What kinds of joins are there?" and "What is the difference between an abstract and an interface?", basic .Net questions. This went fine, since it was easy and he seemed pretty relaxed about it.
2nd part was "culture" I am guessing, because the person I spoke too had a BA background. I was just asked basic questions about my previous jobs, favorite project, issues I have had, and so forth.
3rd was the only part I was iffy on, as it was just a discussion, which involved me having to explain my thought process on projects I had worked on, and to point out why I should have gone other routes, possible issues with that implementation, and so forth. Only thing I noticed is that he kept looking at his watch the whole interview, but he could have had a meeting. Other than that, I thought it went well.
4th part was just odd, as it was another second level manager who didn't make eye contact with me, only reading things off my resume and taking notes. It was awkward, but I saw no issue with anything I said during the process. At the end, he shook my hand, and made eye contact, for what seemed like a good 5-7 seconds, which I have to admit, through me off.
That was the onsite process, I get called the next week letting me know they didn't want to move forward and make me an offer, because I didn't go into enough detail and didn't seem to be strong enough technically for the position. Conversation finished with they would be in touch if anything else came up, because they thought "I was a great guy!"
Thinking about it now, I think what did me in was a mix of the technical and 3rd part of the interview. I could have gone into deeper details with the technical questions instead of giving stock answers, maybe talking about effect of idea or what have you, more or less I should have relayed my knowledge better.
I still think they were looking for a Senior type person (I have about 4 years of experience), but couldn't find one cheap enough, so they were hoping to get lucky with a senior level developer making less money somewhere else.
