This is the ninth post in my attempt to form a blogging habit.
As I promised in the article about recruiters I follow up with some of my favorite real life interview stories.
tl;dr
The (mis)conduct of an interview can give an insight of how the company works. If you see too many warning signs, just walk away!
A few weeks ago, I've been approached by a company, who offered a position I had all the experience to fill, with an acceptable pay range. Even though I knew it would be a bit of a setback, I decided to go on and interview at their place. There was some confusion in the first discussion, that should have been taken as a warning.
I arrived on time, in fact 10 minutes early, so I get my access badge in time. I was all suited up, and asked for the lady from HR at the reception. They tried to call her, and told me to wait in the lobby. Even though the call didn't go through I knew she should be expecting me, and I wanted to see how it turns out anyway.
So there I was, waiting on a sofa, watching people just idling about in the building. I'm used to people with busy schedules, so I set my acceptable waiting standards pretty high, 15 minutes are not uncommon in the type of company I went for. Even so I got quite annoyed after 25 minutes passed after the scheduled time, so tried to call the HR lady's mobile, and since she didn't answer I sent her an SMS, that I'd be leaving in five minutes.
I was no longer than a minute walk away from the building, when the lady called and tried to apologize. She said, the first part of the interview should have been with three of my future colleagues/superiors. They have been waiting for me for half an hour. Would I give them another chance of going back, maybe another time. I was too annoyed to explain her in detail, why I said no, I only told her, that after getting of on the wrong foot, it would not be an unbiased interview, and I don't want to work for a company with such a poor introduction.
If I acted like the bigger man, and walk in the interview nonchalantly it would have given me an upper hand and I could have used it in negotiations. It would have increased my chances to land the job. Why would I still turn such an opportunity down? I had a really good reason to turn them down.
Consider the scenario, three highly skilled people sitting in a room, waiting for someone to show up. Each have my CV with my photo, phone number, my email address and even my easy to remember LinkedIn handle. None of them had the initiative to reach for their phone, call the HR lady, the reception or me directly, none of them walked down and fetch me from the lobby. If they don't like verbal communication, they could have reached out in email, or LinkedIn, knowing, that an IT professional like me, would probably be holding his phone in his hand, while waiting.
That proved, how much they lack initiatives, creativity and going a bit further motivation. It shows how much they care about people, how they don't value others time, how they are willing to waste their own waiting.
