I work in the educational industry, primarily in IIT JEE entrance-test preparation.
I was once selected for an interview with one of the biggest coaching institutes in India after clearing the written test and group discussion. Three faculty members were interviewing us. They were relatively young teachers.
The interview began rather strangely.
They started by making fun of my clothes and shoes. I normally wear casual clothes—jeans, Woodland shoes, etc.—while they apparently expected a particular dress code.
Well, that was okay.
I thought perhaps they were simply testing my confidence.
After their initial “tug of war” was over, they started asking questions. We went through some basic concepts, after which they gave me a few problems to solve.
The interview was being recorded.
I had a feeling that the candidate might already have been decided beforehand.
The questions seemed designed less to test my knowledge and more to disrupt my flow.
Every time I started speaking, they interrupted me. They diverted my attention back to my casual clothes and connected them with my supposedly casual behaviour.
Then they would give me a problem and, almost immediately after finishing the question, say:
“You can’t do this. Let’s move to the next one.”
I said, “At least give me some time to think.”
But the process continued.
They were making notes on a sheet as they went along. I realised that the questions had apparently been given to them beforehand and that they were simply picking questions from that prepared pool.
I was stunned and frustrated.
This was particularly unexpected for me because my interview selection rate had been around 90%.
I sensed what was happening and decided that I had had enough.
I said:
“Okay. I don’t know any of your questions, nor their answers.”
Then I turned the interview around.
“I will give you three problems. If any one of you can solve any one of them, I shall move ahead. Otherwise, I consider it a waste of time to give an interview to incompetent people who cannot think of questions on their own and have to ask questions from a piece of paper.”
Read the academic version in the link below if you are interested in what questions were asked.
The interview was being video-recorded.
I could almost feel the change in the atmosphere.
Their smiles disappeared.
And suddenly, I was no longer “Mr. Pandey.”
I had become “Pandey Sir.”
They tried to shrug it off by giving me more time and suggesting that I was offended.
But I was in no mood to spare them.
And it wasn’t only about me. There were other aspirants waiting outside who would have to go through the same process.
So I gave them three problems from the JEE domain.
They were conceptual problems and did not require much calculation.
Then, to give them even more time, I excused myself and went to the washroom.
After about ten minutes, I returned.
As I had expected, they were still stuck.
I gave them my number and said:
“If no one else from your team can solve these, call me.”
And I left.
I left them with unsettled expressions—and, I suspect, a fair amount of humiliation of their own.
Later, while I was back in the hotel room, I was told something rather amusing.
We were staying in a three-star hotel provided by the company. I was informed that the candidates interviewed after me had been interviewed by “the most pleasant and friendly interviewers in the world!”
Apparently, the atmosphere had changed completely.
As expected, I received a call from the HOD about a week later.
I declined the offer, however, because it was an overseas opportunity and my family circumstances at that point did not permit me to join.
What stayed with me
Looking back, the interesting part of the incident isn’t whether I got the job.
I didn’t.
And I didn’t need it.
What stayed with me was the difference between testing someone’s knowledge and deliberately trying to break their thinking process.
If you want to know whether someone is a good JEE teacher, give them a difficult problem.
Let them think.
Let them struggle.
Let them make mistakes.
Then see how they approach the problem.
A teacher who needs a few minutes to think about an unfamiliar problem isn’t necessarily weak. In mathematics, thinking time is part of the solution.
That is particularly important in JEE preparation. Students eventually encounter problems that cannot be solved by immediately recalling a formula or reproducing a familiar pattern.
They need to learn to sit with a problem.
To explore it.
To try something.
To fail.
And then to try another route.
That is why the three problems in the featured image are important to this story. They were not intended to be speed tests. They were intended to test whether the interviewers themselves could think beyond a prepared question sheet.
And that, ironically, became the real interview.