Forums

 Hello,

  I am going through a fairly involved interviewing process with a top notch company. They are ranked pretty high on the Forbes list of companies to work for. 

  I have been through 6 phone interviews and am expecting a call back for the final panel presentation.

I believe that 5 out of the 6 interviews went really well. I closed all of them and was told that I would be getting a positive disposition from all the interviewers.

The sixth interview did not go so well. I was supposed to interview with this person whom I was going to be working with in the short-term. This person was new (4-weeks) to the company themselves. The following are the high(low)lights of the interview.

  1. The person arrived 25 minutes late to a 45 minute interview
  2. After the first few questions I could tell that they had not even read my resume
  3. The questions were based on a presumption of me having experience in certain industries that I had not even indicated on my resume.
  4. Unnecessarily hard-charging
  5. When I closed at the end, I received a full 30 seconds of silence at the other end of the line

I don't think this interview will derail my process but I have soured somewhat on this company for putting me in front of this person. 

How do I handle this going forward? Do I speak about my experience to the recruiter or the hiring manager? I am pretty sure I will get a bad disposition from this person but I doubt it will result in me being rejected from the process. Should I just let it go? 

 

maura's picture
Training Badge

I'd let it go, in terms of interpreting what it says about the company. 

This person has only been with the company 4 weeks, and probably hasn't drunk (drank?) the company kool-aid yet... they are probably still overwhelmed with learning the ropes themselves, let alone learning what to look for in YOUR role, being able to prepare for the interview and do it appropriately.  I do agree that it's odd to put someone so new into the interviewer chair.  Oddly enough I see this as kind of a good sign though... you made it through the other 5 interviews with flying colors, and I'm willing to give the company the benefit of the doubt, and assume that their motivation was more on the lines of "this person seems like a great fit, lets have him/her meet Joe since they will be working together, just to be sure".  I think that last interview was INTENDED to be about interpersonal fit, but the person who interviewed you didn't get that message.  Maybe they felt like they were supposed to play "bad cop", who knows.

And that brings me to the one piece that would give me pause:  this is someone you are going to be working with directly in the short term, if hired... and they showed up late and unprepared, and then didn't do a good job of conducting the interview.  What would that mean to you in your first 90 days?  If it's not a deal breaker, then let it go entirely.

I would not bring this up to the recruiter or the hiring manager at all.  Even trying to get clarification on how long you would be working with that person and in what capacity, would go badly for you.  However, if THEY bring it up to you in some way, be ready with some positive, constructive and very generic statements about being able to work in high throughput situations, with people that have varying interpersonal styles, or whatever.