I went for another job interview today. (Now there’s news!) The location happened to be in the greater metro area, but really, it could have been anyplace. It was a scheduled one-hour session with a screening committee, for a vice presidency position at a community college.
I showed up early to the Human Resources office, only to be informed that the interview was actually located in a totally different part of campus (driving distance away). After attempting to give me directions (although early to show up at HR, I was now going to be late for the interview), one staff member agreed to ride with me and show me where the committee was meeting.
The chair of the committee was standing in the hallway: waiting not only for me, but for a committee member who had disappeared. After a few minutes he announced we were ready. He led me into the room, and I found the “hot seat” easily. Everyone said their name and area, and the chair immediately said “[some name] has the first question” – and she proceeded to read it. No putting the candidate at ease, no explanation of the process, no nothing. Just boom: the first question.
Now, I had spent some serious time today researching this place. They have problems. The faculty in the last week voted “no confidence” in the president. A consulting firm has been doing survey and interview work on campus to prepare a status report for the Board, to be delivered on June 26th. The local newspaper has reported that a very long list of high-level administrators (the names were given, and I know some of them) have left since this president has taken over. A recent editorial identifies him as “controlling, egocentric, power hungry and suspicious.”
OK: so the first question was something about “issues and challenges of faculty.” (Note: they just jumped right into content, there was no obvious question on the list of fifteen actually designed to solicit information about me. It appeared that they had structured quite an academic exercise.) I started by saying that I had hoped to have a dialog with them today. Given the question about “issues and challenges,” I said that I knew the college had them, but I wanted to have a discussion about what was going on there on campus. I stated that I believed they might learn a little bit about what I know in this rigid question/answer format, but not who I am and what I could bring to the college during these troubled times. I was interrupted and informed that they had a process to follow. I said that given the current issues and challenges of the college, I had at least an hour’s worth of questions of them. I was informed that we had 50 minutes total.
I respectfully withdrew my candidacy and drove home.