Interviewing Tactics

A couple of months ago, one of our Quality Engineers at work was promoted. This left us only 1 Quality Engineer, whom had been on the job less than 5 months. Before we could even put an ad out for the position, a gal (I'll call Lisa) applied for the position. She was an aquaintance (maybe a friend?) of the Engineer that was promoted, so had the inside scoop on the opening.

I am on the interview team for Quality Engineers. Usually I only interview if we bring someone in for a 2nd interview, but that time I was in the first round. Although I wasn't overly impresses, she seemed more of a paper pusher than a hands-on person, I wasn't unimpressed either. I was rather put out by her bringing up her contact with "highly placed" managers at the company she presently works at. She didn't mention it just once, she mentioned it several times.

I am pleasantly surprised when I get a thank-you for the interview, from someone. As a Documentation Specialist, most people don't believe I am important enough to send a thank-you to. It's not a deal-breaker for me, but it is part of Interviewing 101 that you send a thank-you to everyone involved. So, I was not surprised in the least that Lisa never sent me a note.

Thursday I got to interview Lisa a second time. For various reasons, the remaining Quality Engineer and the Quality Manager were not going to interview her again. I asked them if they had gotten a thank-you from Lisa, and both of them replied in the negative. Now I had a mission, to see if I could get Lisa to make an admission that she didn't want to make.

So, the interview was going swimmingly, from Lisa's point of view. I'm lobbing her slow pitches, and she is coming up with the answers she thought I wanted to hear - or would be impressed with (of which I truly didn't care about anyway - especially when she kept talking about the "highly placed" managers).

Then I did it. I even announced that I was going to rattle her cage:

Me: "Well, I'm not sure how to put this, it's rather a touchy subject, so I'm just going to bluntly put it out there - why didn't you send out any thank-you notes after the first interview?"

Now, she had a couple of options; admit that she thought she had the job in the bag (because of her inside contact), admit that she wasn't really that interested in the job or take the 3rd option.

AND SHE DID IT - SHE REALLY DID IT. I couldn't believe it but she took the worst option she could have (at least with me):

Her: "I was on maternity leave when I came in for the 1st interview." She paused here, waiting for me to nod understandingly and sympathize, but I didn't. "I was so busy with the new baby and my other children that I didn't have time."

I sat there just looking at her. The Mommy Card is not the card to be playing around me. This is doubly true if you are on maternity leave - after all, you found a couple of hours to come in for the first interview, and you couldn't find 20 minutes to make out thank-yous? Additionally, how can you find time to put in 9 hour days at work if you don't have time to make out thank-yous? I didn't say anything, just sat there and looked at her.

Her, after about 45 seconds of silence: "And anyway, it didn't seem that you were that interested in filling the job, after all, it hadn't been posted internally let alone any ads put out."

Notice how neatly she did that? She first blamed the baby and her other children, then turned it around and blamed our company! She couldn't take the blame herself and say "I messed up and didn't think to send them. Believe me, now that you have pointed out my error, I will make sure to send out thank-yous in the future." If I didn't push any further, she wouldn't have to explain that she thought she had the job in the bag so wasn't going to waste her time, or that she was hoping to get an offer from somewhere elso so didn't bother. "I didn't have time" is a weasely not to take blame. Then to blame US for her not taking action was not even an option that I had considered. I could only think "What gall!" What does this bode for when mistakes happen while she's on the job? Who will get the blame?

Me (time to rattle her cage, part two): "We have been totally serious about filling the position. To be perfectly frank, we made an offer to someone else, but he recieved an offer from a company that he thought he was better suited for, so we are now going back thru some of the candidates as well as accepting new applications."

This was a perfectly true statement and I guess I shook her a bit with that.

The other person that interviewed her was our HR Representative (we no longer have an HR Manager). Before she began her interview, we had a short pow-wow, and I mentioned what had transpired.

Apparently during the interview with the HR Rep, Lisa said something to the effect that she was going to have to talk to her inside contact because she thought that no one else was even being interviewed (in other words, she thought she had it in the bag - not exactly what she told me). Then she pretty much threatened that if we didn't make up our minds to hire her soon, she thought there was something in the works at her place of employment that would make her decide to stay.

WELL, isn't that special? Especially after she had told me during the 1st interview that she was looking for a new position because she knew that lay-offs were coming, but she didn't know how deep the cuts would be (she may or may not still have a job), and that she "Wanted to be the author of her own destiny."

Don't let the door hit you in your *ss on the way out Lisa!

I may be a lowly Documentation Specialist, but that also makes me a good person for "cage rattling". Interviewees don't expect it of me, and they don't expect the Managers, Engineers and HR Reps to take my opinion too seriously (or maybe we aren't supposed to talk to each other at all).

Anyway, it is official, Lisa is not being considered for the job and the search for a Quality Engineer continues.

Comments

[Wichi Dude]

Nicely done.

[Cop Car]

Believe it or not: engineers with whom I worked took seriously the input from our admin aides who, usually, fetched the interviewee from the engineering reception area and brought him/her to the work area. Our admin aides could elicit unguarded information from the interviewees that were invaluable. How much more valuable would be the input from a documentation person?! You are in a perfect position to ferret out the "real them". Great job!