Monday, January 17, 2011

Interview with VB Equipment Maker in Toronto

Went to an interview with a video broadcast equipment maker in Toronto/North York.

This company had all their ducks in a row:
1. were prepared to discuss salary from the get-go so I do not waste time;
2. did a phone pre-screening where they asked the right questions;
3. were nice and paid attention to my hourly preferences [traffic in Toronto can be hell at certain times of the day];
4. in the panel interview they asked technical questions and made it quite interesting; also they discussed what they were doing at the company.

Their only faux-pas was an interview with a fairly green HR person who asked me 'behavioural' questions from a sheet of paper and then [creepily] was jotting down my answers.

Now I tried to restrain my answers as not to spook her -- if she has experience only from reading books it could be easy for me to trip a dumb no-go checklist.

In my not so humble opinion and experience a seasoned HR person will discuss freely, assess the person in front of her and take notes after the end of the interview.

-ulianov