So far, since being back in Calgary, I've lined up three different interviews so far, with one coming up tomorrow and a couple last week. While the interviewing process is always kind of stressful, I've also found it interesting to see different people's interviewing processes.
Last week, I had two interviews with the same company for one position. The first interview was with the woman I would have been working directly under, and it went very well. I liked her, and the sounds of the position; it was a breakfast interview, very unstructured, but it gave me a feel for the company and for her, and I was eager to continue. The next stage in the process was to interview with someone else, via Skype, and I was told she would be in touch to set something up.
The breakfast meeting ended about 11:00, and I got an email very quickly after that form the other woman asking when I was available to speak to her. I replied, telling her I was free all day, and to let me know when would be a good time. I think my reply went out maybe an hour after she sent it, but I'm not sure. In any case, when I hadn't heard anything by 1:30, I sent another reply in case there had been some problem with the first email, because it had been sent from my phone, which was new, and I wanted to ensure I got this process going, as I was very excited. An hour later, I got a reply saying that she had gotten the first email as well, and that she would get back to me 'a bit later' with a time for that night.
I then didn't hear back from her until 7:30. At this point, I was already starting to wonder a bit about the job; I had just essentially spent my whole day waiting to hear from this woman, and she was now wanting to put it off until the next day, though she did leave it up to me to decide, and I asked if we could do it that night still, as I wasn't going to be available the next night. At this point, I was feeling like my time didn't really matter to this woman, and hoped that the interview might show me differently.
Based on the earlier interview, and with the knowledge that both of these women are HR pros, I was expecting to see a more structured interview in the second round, or to be asked to participate in some kind of behavioural assessment, but that didn't happen. Instead, the woman spoke mainly about herself and her position in the company, and when asking about me, actually stopped listening partway through and replied to something else on her screen! This was extremely apparent because we were talking via Skype on her laptop, and I saw her eyes move across the screen, and then heard the mic pick up the sound of her typing very loudly, while I was trying to answer a question about my career background.
Needless to say, the second interview did not go well.
I was very disappointed. By the end of the interview, I was strongly reconsidering even accepting the position if it was offered, and was also fairly sure it was not going to be offered to me. I don't know exactly how I came across in the second interview; I know I was very thrown off by the whole experience, and the first, positive interview was definitely overshadowed by the second. Chances are it wasn't my best interview, but I'm still wondering how much she even heard of what I had to say.
Ultimately, I was right; I wasn't offered the job. Frankly, that made things easier all around. While I admire and respect what the company does, I just couldn't get past my interview experience. I don't really want this blog post to come across as bitter, either; I have other options to explore, and I'm not really sure how good a fit I would have been there, anyway. After all, I'm not just trying to find a job, I'm trying to find the right job. So all in all, I don't regret it, I just think it was a good learning experience, and I'll move on to the next one.
My next interview is tomorrow. We'll see how that one goes. After all, the candidate is assessing you as much as you are assessing the candidate.
No comments:
Post a Comment