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This sounds like a standup trainer type of interview. It has some very sales oriented elements to it. It is not unprofessional at all. No more that say a stress interview where all the interviewers are in the same room. And, each interviewer asks questions as you are answering other questions. Neither your interview or these stress interviews are meant to be easy.
If you don't want to be a standup trainer, don't take the job. The reality is that the personalities of TW/IDs is very different from a standup trainer. The real problem here is does the company know the difference.
If it wasn't for that "-trainer" tacked on the end of the job title, then I would say yes, the interview was strange. But, I remember when I interviewed for an insurance sales rep position. There were guys standing around out in the halls. When I didn't say hello and engage them, I lost the job. I had to be a "people" person. And, that is something that I am not.
I did have an interview where I addressed what I knew the objection was going to be "not technical enough." Why did I know this? The person, another TW, that recommended me for the job told me about it. It was a dot com. But, later, the objection came up again by the young punk VP of Dev. They took me to HR gave me all the forms and wanted me to mail them back before they would make up there mind. I usually close the day I go in. So when I got back to my car, I wrote the no thank you letter. They were going to ship in a month. They had no TW, and no doc. Six months later I find out that they still haven't found a TW that was technical enough. Was it ageism or change of practice (anti-software engineering)? I don't know, and don't care. They didn't ship, so they paid a financial price for being idiots. It didn't help that the VP of R&D told the VP of Dev to write up the missing use cases that were uncovered during my interview.
David
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