So, I finished my two first round interviews with a well-known consulting firm.
First interview went well in my opinion (not perfect, but I would say very good).
Second interview went really, really bad.
Firstly, it was conducted over mobile phone and the sound was not very clear (the interviewer's accent was also not very benefitable for me), so that I did not acoustically understand some parts of the case prompt. I stopped him in the middle of the case and asked to repeat because I could not hear him clearly, but there were no more things I could do. Also kindly asked him a few times to repeat what he said because the sound was not very clear, so that he might take this into account as well (as I mentioned the sound problem explicitly).
Secondly, the flow of the case was very irritating, actual question and objective were not clear (even after asking I did not get clear answers and during the case I got even more irritated regarding the actual client's question and objective). Interviewer didn't even ask me for a formal recommendation (although we had over 5 minutes left), just directly if I have any questions for him.
My questions:
- What happens if two interviewers don't agree regarding passing/not passing the interviewee to the 2nd round? Does somebody strictly need two Yes to proceed, or is it likely that a 3rd interview is conducted?
- Should I let the HR know about what happened in the 2nd interview? At least I could mention the sub-optimal sound quality (because this was the factor which made it the most difficult for me to perform) and just ask them to take this into consideration/pass it on to the interviewer. If so, should I do it now or wait for a decision? If I get a rejection, they might think I lied and just try to gain a second chance. If I do it now, it might have influence on their decision...
(edited)