I also firmly believe that if it were meant to be, a poor interview performance will not rule you out entirely. And likewise, if you nail the interview that is no guarantee that you will get an offer, let alone the position.
Anyway on to a couple of recent experiences where I was the interviewee:
The first one I want to tell you about was a clinic in how to confuse your candidate. This particular company was one I have known about for years, but not in a positive light. But they had a position open that I felt could use my experience to help them fill a need and at the least bridge a gap. I knew a couple of people that were currently at the company and ping'd them to see what kind of interest there might be on the company's side. After a couple of emails, I got a phone interview with the hiring manager. Smart guy, well rounded in infrastructure and pleasant to talk to. So I was scheduled for a follow up in the office.
I arrive early, wait in reception area until HR comes out to greet and take me to a conference room. So far so good. After talking with her, I am sensing that I may not have been clear as to the position I was interested in, which was a hands-on role. She was hinting at my management experiences and didn't seem at all interested in the technical side. I dismissed it as a pretty common thing for an HR person who may have little technical experience to have done.
Then the first of two interviewers come in. The questions are decidedly for a management position, which I was unaware they were considering me for, and to be quite honest, due to their reputation I was not interested in that role here. Same with next interviewer. Then hiring manager comes in, we just sort of casually shoot the breeze having already done most of the hard interviewing via phone.
So a couple of days later, CTO calls for a phone interview. Nothing raised any red flags, even when I asked if she felt the storm was ahead or behind them, in regards to organizational and management changes. She assured me that it was behind them and she had her team firmly in place with the exception of this position, which was clear it was management at this point. So she says 48 hours for a decision. Two weeks later and only one email from HR, I get a call out of the blue from someone to interview me, no introduction, nada. So he starts in asking essentially the same questions...so I interrupt to ask who he is and did he just return from vacation because I thought I had already interviewed with the entire team. He indicates he is the new hiring manager.
Whoa! Ok, lets do some analysis here. First, the position I was interested in, I was clearly not interviewed for, and the position I was not interested in, was the one I was interviewed for, which to me was a blindside. The questions and answers for a single contributor hands-on role are vastly different from a department leader. Second, the CTO was so wrong about where her staff stood that the original hiring manager was already half out the door when I was interviewing. And to top it off, the new hiring manager interviewed me in what I can only describe as a rhetorical stream of consciousness style. He would ask a question and then answer it himself, "What do you know about Netapp filers? I don't know what you know...how am I supposed to figure out if you understand..." I only wish I had recorded that interview because I don't half believe it happened that way either.
To summarize, this was a company that has a bad reputation with everyone I know that has worked there. And it is north of 15...they have a similar platform to a previous employer, which is why I was interested in coming in for hands-on role...I knew I could be productive fairly quickly even though I am rusty. They are obviously not out of the woods with their management changes and culture shifts. And they just firmly cemented my resolve to never consider working there and recommending anyone to stay clear. Incidentally, the two people I mentioned above no longer work there either.
The next interview was a huge waste of travel costs and both their and my time. After several phone interviews which were by all accounts very exciting to both parties, they scheduled an in person. They flew me in, put me up at a hotel, and then had me come in for a 4 hour interview with several panels. This was for a Director titled position. So as the interview is progressing, things are going well, and they have this position's one direct report in on the interview. This person is clearly frazzled and not well supported, at least that is the vibe I am getting. So after a lot of standard questions, I start getting some hard scenario questions based on recent events at the company. So as I am answering how I would handle the situation, up and down stream, the manager unloads on me a little about something that shouldn't necessarily concern her at her level, to which the hiring manager sort of pish tosh's her...whoops red flag number one.
So now that I have met her, I am starting to get a glimpse of what I am going to be up against here. We are sitting in a conference room with a large whiteboard, so I press them for an org chart. I really can't stress this enough...a picture is worth a thousand words! When I saw the org chart, which was drawn by the recruiter oddly, I knew that this was an over-inflated title. This was a Sr. Manager position at best. In hindsight I normally ask enough questions by this point to have a rough sketch of an org chart, but the way I was sold on this position, I thought I had a good idea what sort of role it was. Red flag number two.
So now I am starting to hear 'matrix' getting dropped into the discussion for this team of Sysadmins. There are 15 of them in two departments, one with a manager and the other is being handled by the hiring manager, a recently promoted VP. So, I gingerly relate my experiences with matrix organizations and how I have seen them fail miserably, and it really boils down to selling it to your existing staff by showing how it can be beneficial. But I also express my belief that I lean more towards a hybrid organizational system especially for an existing Unix Sysadmin team.
Then in comes the C-levels. There are two and they are tossing out some real softball questions, presumably to get a feel for me and my management style. Fair enough. But then the hammer comes down and they say in no uncertain terms, that the matrix system will be implemented because, and I am paraphrasing here, they have seen it work. Red flag number three.
Now here is the part where I feel a little embarrassed. A question along the lines of 'what would your previous employees say about you if they were here right now''
Not my proudest moment, but this goes back to my belief that there is a love connection or there isn't. In this case, I felt like I had been lured to a third date and then the ugly truth came out. If they had just been upfront about the org structure and their resolve to implement a matrix organization, maybe the trip and the hours of everyone's time would have been better spent.
In a nutshell, don't dismiss your intuition or chemistry when it comes to the interview process.
Some further reading:
10 Words Not to Say in Your Job Interview
http://www.ihatepeoplethebook.com/2009/07/ten-words-not-to-say-in-your-job-interview.html
5 Ways to Spot Bad Company Culture
http://blog.doostang.com/2013/01/30/5-ways-to-spot-bad-company-culture/
The lighter side:
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/interview_questions
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/interviewees
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