{"id":8904,"date":"2007-05-25T13:27:00","date_gmt":"1999-11-29T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=8904"},"modified":"2007-05-25T13:27:00","modified_gmt":"1999-11-29T20:00:00","slug":"how-not-to-host-an-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=8904","title":{"rendered":"How Not To Host An Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m primarily a contractor but I do keep an eye on the permanent scene.\u00a0 My ideal job is a senior role, with or migrating to a modern infrastructure, lots of hands on and a position with an influence on strategy.\u00a0 I’ve worked a job like this before and it is completely intoxicating.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Last month I interviewed with a company who offered such a role.\u00a0 On the face of it, the companies and the role seemed perfect for me.\u00a0 But I never count chickens before they are hatched or judge a book by it’s covers.\u00a0 Put simply, I am interviewing the interviewer.\u00a0 They have to sell that company and that job for me to consider leaving contracting.\n<\/p>\n

Company A was an American company that was moving lock, stock and barrel to Ireland, including a growing server farm that includes 400+ Windows servers.\u00a0 The role was for a "principle engineer\/architect".\u00a0 Interviews 1,2 and 3 went well.\u00a0 The job was described to me in interview #1.\u00a0 The interviewers in the following two interviews went over the jobs again.\u00a0 After interview #2 it was clear they wanted me.\u00a0 Then they brought in their "senior" technical person for interview #4.\u00a0 It went downhill from there.\n<\/p>\n

This guy never bothered to shake my hand and had a serious attitude problem.\u00a0 His attitude stank … it was clear he didn’t want to be talking to me.\u00a0 He was a Penguin Lover (A Linux person who hates<\/em> all things Microsoft).\u00a0 He knocked everything I had ever worked with and clearly displayed a lack of understanding of how those products worked … that might have explained why they didn’t work for him in the past \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 He then asked me to describe the job being offered.\u00a0 I did.\u00a0 His eyes opened up\u00a0wide.\u00a0 This was the first time it appeared he was paying attention to me.\u00a0 Uh uh … he described the job for me … a intermediate level break\/fix engineer … which is not what I am.\u00a0 I told him that if this was the case then we might as well save his and my time and end things right there.\u00a0 We did … he muttered something under his breath and went off to his office, leaving me standing outside the meeting room.\u00a0 He didn’t bother to shake my hand or walk me to the elevator or door.\n<\/p>\n

My feedback to the recruitment agency was not exactly positive.\u00a0 The "principle engineer\/architect" role turned out to be a mid level engineer role.\u00a0 I had wasted two trips to their office, both at very short notice.\u00a0 Word is, the guy from interview #4 might<\/em> have a history of screwing interviews up.\u00a0 Oh … his strategy for managing and monitoring the 400+ Windows servers?\u00a0 Scripts.\u00a0 I’m a fan of scripts but there is a time and a place.\u00a0 This is not one of those … this is 100% a situation where an enterprise management solution is the solution.\n<\/p>\n

Lessons to be learned?\u00a0<\/p>\n