My last experience as a job applicant was over 14 years ago; however, I remember most the process well. I was working for the New York Times where I wrote a couple of op-ed (opposite the editorial page) pieces. One article piqued the interest of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), so I was asked to coauthor and present a paper at AERA.
After the presentation, a VP from Pearson started recruiting me. Initially, there were several meetings and phone calls. The company wanted me to do something very new with high-stakes assessments. It was an exciting prospect, so I decided to give the job a “go.”
First—the interview process. 8 different people interviewed me. They “seemed” to have behavioral questions to ask, but a few interviewers went off script with trick questions. I would give the interview process a solid C-; I was not impressed.
I received an offer; it was okay, but it was not in line with the rest of the recruitment process. I countered their offer, and they were surprised. I was ready to back out of the process because the benefits package that didn’t align with the recruitment process. I would give this part of the hiring process a D-!
There was a disconnect between what HR offered and what the hiring manager had told me would be the expected offer. I was not happy, so I started negotiating for a better benefits package.
In the end, my benefits package lived up to the initial information I had been given. Before this job opportunity, I had never been recruited. I had only applied for jobs and hoped for an interview. Though I scored the hiring processes low, the actual job and organization are awesome–regardless of the initial bumps.
4 replies on “Hello world!”
Hi Karren:
I think your experience of this recruitment process simply explains quite a few major issues one face in the recruitment process. As you mentioned you were interviewed by 8 different people this is not something insignificant instead it puts a lot of pressure on the employee and this way the process can be extremely hectic. Even though it looks like a thorough screening of the new recruit but this can be done in simpler manners. For interviews my opinion is to use psychological concepts or challenges that brings out the reality of the recruit. Over all I thing the whole interview process was hectic and demoralizing because the more sophisticated the processes the more the other party gets anxious and feel demotivated. As you mentioned in the end that they didn’t even gave the offer that you were expecting to the hiring manager told you about this also shows that the departments aren’t integrated for final decisions. During the process there might be many who would might have left the position by thing that if the interview is so through and hectic how much the work will while the organization itself was great. I think these little misconceptions and not having proper alignment in the departments can create a big barrier if not handled properly.
I had no idea what was going to take place. I own that I didn’t ask or investigate the company’s processes for recruitment and staffing. Of course, 14 years later I know it was kind of a “clown show” where I was being interviewed by people who had absolutely zero training or understanding about how interviews must happen. The positive take-away is that I do not recruit or hire the way I was recruited and/or hired.
Hi, Karen,
Your experience is very interesting, I never have any situation like that before. I can’t imagine what would be 8 different people to interview you, but for me, that sounds very uncomfortable and does not follow any hiring process at all. Also, their question seems not close to the hiring program as well, so I guess they try to find out some hidden details about you but seems like they don’t understand what are they talking about, the hire question should be clear and straight, so interviewees will easily understand what the question is and what answer should they give. I think an interview with 8 different people could be very exhausted, you have to go to each person every time, answer their questions, it is not a good way to hire a person. In other words, it makes the whole hire process way too long and complex for interviewees, most interviewees may feel extremely boring and decide to leave the interview, it is not a good sound for the company at all. Meanwhile, if this happens because each department doesn’t know how to work together, this may be a big problem for the company, it should be solved as soon as possible.
Hi Chen,
I did not mind the 8 different interviewers; I just thought the process should have been more cohesive. The questions were redundant and I felt that the interview committee had not coordinated their questions with each other. Also, for a couple of the people on the interview committee to go off script and ask what I consider to be “trick” questions was unneeded. I agree with you, though. I think that they could have simplified the process. I beleive this type of situation can easily occur when a behemoth organization buys a smaller organization and all of the new processes in the parent organization have not been absorbed by the newly acquired company.