What the real interview was like

1. Applied through micro1.
2. An AI interview and assessment.
3. Waiting for onboarding when the review was written.

• Explaining the reasoning behind each answer.
• Handling ambiguous cases.
• Interpreting task guidelines.
• Practical quality and evaluation scenarios for AI work.

• Structured and professional, with a flow that was easy to follow.
• Pushed for depth rather than accepting surface answers.

• →Practise explaining your reasoning step by step.
• →Prepare for ambiguous cases and read guidelines closely.

Finished the assessment; no project yet at the time of writing.

1. Account setup and general onboarding.
2. A project screener with written evaluation tasks.
3. A course described as paid training.

• Detailed written evaluations that needed careful answers.

• Self-paced, with no interviewer.
• Took about four times the advertised 75 minutes.

• →Allow far more time than the advertised screener length.

Onboarding failed, with no reason given.

1. An assessment of side-by-side response comparisons.
2. Later saw practice material showing each pair came from different systems.

• Choose the better of two chatbot responses, and explain why.

• No interviewer: written, self-paced tasks.

• →The two responses may come from different models. Judge each on its merits.

Not known when the review was posted.

1. An application form, including demographic questions.
2. An assessment built on technical, unusual prompt scenarios.

• Highly technical, niche scenarios instead of typical user requests.

• No interviewer: a written assessment.
• Did not seem to test everyday reasoning and communication.

• →Expect specialised prompts rather than everyday chatbot questions.

No response after submitting.

1. A generalist interview with the AI, about 40 minutes.
2. A C programming interview, about 20 minutes, then a coding test set in JavaScript.
3. An AI annotator interview drawing on their chip design field.

• How the generalist role works, in detail.
• Abstract C concepts.
• Name two red flags in an AI answer about chip scaling.

• Fast, abstract questions packed into a short time.
• Felt more like one AI talking to another than a conversation.
• The coding test language did not match the C interview.

• →Practise spotting red flags in AI answers from your own field.
• →Check which language the coding test uses before you start.

Rejected for the generalist role; other results not stated.

1. Brought onto a project.
2. The project paused for about three months.
3. A three-hour re-qualification evaluation.

• A three-hour evaluation of project work.

• No interviewer: a scored test with a 70 percent pass mark.

• →Expect a fresh test when a paused project restarts.

Failed by one point.

1. Applied through a job posting.
2. Several AI-run assessments spread over several days.

• Long assessments that felt unrelated to the advertised job.

• Run by AI, not people.
• Unpaid and spread across several days.

• →Ask how long the unpaid assessments are before committing.

No further contact afterwards.

1. A recorded video interview.
2. A long set of guidelines to read.
3. An hour-long training video.
4. An hour-long group call with trainers.
5. An evaluation test rating chatbot responses.

• Assess chatbot responses against the project guidelines.

• A recorded video interview at the start, with no live interviewer.
• The test seemed to be graded automatically within an hour.

• →Study the guidelines closely, since the test is judged against them.

Failed the evaluation with no feedback.