Interviews and Interrogations
Repeat after me – “An interview is not an interrogation.”
An interview is not an interrogation.
Good. See how easy that was?
Now, tell me why so many interviews I’ve gone on have been run by people who can not grasp this concept. I honestly want to know. It’s even worse when the ones with the interrogation mindset are companies who contacted you instead of companies that you submitted a resume to (one of which wanted me to drive 4+ hours to meet with them only to run the interview in a childish and thoroughly unprofessional manner).
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been on a couple of interviews that were actually rather good all-around, but we decided that we weren’t a good fit for each other. However, I’ve been on more than my share that were dysfunctional.
The funny thing is that it always seems to be only one of the two interviewing groups (HR and technical) who are hostile at any given interview. Either the HR people are crazed and the technical people are nice or the HR people are great and the technical people decide that they need to run it as though it’s your first day of boot camp.
An interview is not an interrogation.
If I am told that I am meeting with the technical manager, that is whom I expect to meet with. I do not expect, nor do I appreciate, being ambushed by the manager and several of his staff. If you want me to meet with the manager and his staff, tell me that I am meeting with the manager and his staff. Being ambushed by multiple people when I am told that I am only meeting one imparts a great deal of mistrust in me.
While I expect to discuss how the company and I can work together as well as what qualifications I have, I do not expect to be treated in a hostile manner. This sort of stress test annoys me to no end and kills your chances of my working with you. I plan on treating you with respect, and I expect to be treated the same way.
This is not to say that I am an uptight person, because almost anyone who has ever worked with me will tell you that I am a very relaxed and amiable individual. However, I do not appreciate being treated as though I am a prisoner who is to be broken on the rack.
An interview is not an interrogation.
I expect and welcome discussion on things that I have done in the past. I do not expect or welcome being grilled on the minutia of things which I did several years ago as was the case when I was called in on an interview for a tech position (which I was lied to concerning the nature of in the first place).
My primary pursuit of late has been software development, not system administration. While I do have multiple machines at home (laptop for development, older tower for a CVS repository, etc), I do not generally have reason to use the security auditing tools that I made use of while I was a network analyst with the Voinovich Center and dealing with something approaching 200 machines if you count both servers and desktops.
I am quite good at being an admin. In fact, I still get called in on consulting jobs just for my admin skills, and in one case simply to work up an expansion strategy for an IT department. I just haven’t done it in a heavy duty capacity in about a year and a half.
Unlike so many people out there, I actually have done everything that is on my resume (and a number of things that aren’t on it) so stop trying to ask me trick questions about things that I did two years ago.
We’re all professionals here in theory at least.
An interview is not an interrogation.
In order to attract quality people, you have to behave in a manner which they can appreciate and which will allow them to accomplish their jobs. A hostile interviewing environment is indicative of a hostile work environment.
Here’s a free piece of advice – we don’t like that. Yes, we may enjoy pressure on occasion and even thrive on it, but work should not be a hostile place. In theory, you pay us to perform some set of services for your company and in return, we request a reasonable pay rate and an environment in which we can actually accomplish our mutual goals.
Is it okay to ask the tough questions in an interview or on the job? Yes. In fact, I advocate it. However, being completely hostile or expecting to be able to treat people as though they are serfs who are incapable of leaving you doesn’t get you anything but talent walking out the door, often before they ever start working for you.
We’re all professionals here. Let’s act like it. After all, an interview is not an interrogation and neither is the job that follows it.