The process was handled through a recruiter. I first had an hour phone interview with the recruiter. Standard sort of interview. Questions about my resume, my interest in the position, etc. Next, I had a phone interview with the hiring manager about a month later. Kind of a long delay. Same sort of questions about my resume, my interest in the position, my communication style, etc. About a month after that I was asked to come into their office for an in-person interview. This was awkward. First, the hiring manager, who I spoke to on the phone about a month before, seemed almost irritated to be there. Next, the other two clearly didn’t have the same background that I did and seemed uncomfortable with asking technical or detailed questions. Overall, it just didn’t feel right and I got a generic sort of email a couple of days later saying they were pursuing other candidates.
There are three things with this company that really bothered me. First, after every interview, the recruiter would email me the day after and then call me when I replied to discuss how I felt about the interview. Kind of like she wanted a blow by blow of exactly what happened and how I felt the entire time. Even the interview I had with her. Honestly, I didn’t response to her after the in-person interview because I knew I didn’t want to work with them.
Second, they required me to fill out some online form for professional references after the phone interview with the recruiter and it was required before I interviewed with the hiring manager. I don’t have anything against professional references at all, but, I thought, this was premature considering I hadn’t even discuss the position with the hiring manager. The worst part of this was each of my references received an excessive and cumbersome questionnaire with 45 questions (rating my past performance from 1 to 5) and 5 free form questions with a minimum of 250 characters. I thought this was way overkill and they required at least 4 of the 5 references to complete this questionnaire before allowing me to discuss the position with the hiring manager.
Lastly, I had the feeling during the phone interview with the hiring manager and certainly during the in-person interview that the company was just looking for potential prospects. They didn’t actually have an open position that they needed filled. Rather they were just interviewing candidates to see if there was someone they absolutely couldn’t live without. The company is an advisory firm and such organizations are actually owned and operated by numerous “partners.” I kind of had the sense they were more looking for potential partners than actual employees. I am definitely not partnership material and even stated that during my phone interview with the recruiter, which didn’t appear to have made it to the hiring manager.
