I was contacted by the HR department at Bridgewater to have a phone interview about a project management position in their Westport office in February of 2011. The call was scheduled within a few days and was with 2 men.
I looked them up on Linkedin prior. One was employed with Bridgewater for 3 months (and is not now), the other almost 4 years.
I called internally and asked a few people I knew there some questions before my call..
Two of the people I spoke to asked me to get them out of Bridgewater.
Two believed that they couldn't work anywhere else
All quoted an insane amount of turn-over in IT. 1 year lifespan for most.
I heard all about the bonus pledging, sounds interesting and profitable.
OK on to the phone interview...
I've been a PM or a Senior Level Manager for top three global investment banks for the past 14 years. I have moved an exchange, built several trading floors throughout the world, and managed as many as 5 directs with a total staff of ~50. I'm no CIO, and I'm certainly not a newbie.
I couldn't answer one of the questions that was being asked by the one of the men, it just didn't make any sense to me. When I questioned him, he become frustrated quickly. He began cursing and shouting into the phone. Clearly an ill-masked test. I stopped him and said, "thanks for your time, I'm not into hazing interviews or being tested over an introductory phone interview for an IT job. Shouldn't we be doing this in person"?
They liked my candid and I quote "ballsy response" and was invited in. Like a moron I declined. I should have gone all the way through and told them I wasn't interested, but I was too lazy to drive up to Westport to do so. Next time!