An Interview for the Ages

Although it is said of interviews  “you shouldn’t take rejection personally,” it can feel as if they are a referendum on your value as a person. Like casual dating, there is almost always some level of competition with the other suitors in the hunt. Unlike casual dating, it is almost always a single-elimination game. And if they think “you just weren’t a good fit” compared to another candidate, what was “wrong “with you?

A recent interview brings this question to the fore. Already having offers in hand, it certainly should not have been a make-or-break situation. Actually, my main reason for even doing it was preparation for another interview the following day with a company that I was much more interested in. And yet…

The company’s corporate offices were in a high-rise building downtown, and, despite the fact that the result “didn’t matter” and was “only practice”, as I waited in the lobby I worried about whether or not by selecting “business casual” I’d underdressed. Everyone seemed to be in suits and ties, and there was more than a whiff of cologne in the air. As I fiddled with my phone, I heard a voice say, “Here for the interview?”

I looked up and saw a man who strongly resembled Teller of the magic duo Penn and Teller (Teller is the short one who doesn’t talk). I’d talked to him earlier in the phone screen. Since our discussion hadn’t been the least bit magical, the fact that he was a speaking doppelgänger of Teller’s was a surprise. Pretending that I hadn’t noticed the resemblance, I enthusiastically replied, “You bet!” Vegas-style.

After we were situated and he glanced at his computer screen, I sensed a subtle annoyance when he said after a silent grimace, “The second interviewer didn’t accept my invitation.” I realized that my interviewer was somewhat flustered as these interviews were typically conducted in pairs and he was the only one who’d bothered to show up. Now he’d have to ask all the questions, which I assumed might be very uncomfortable because of his strong resemblance to Teller. Nevertheless, he overcame any apparent stage fright and said, “Let’s get started. I’m going to lay out a situation and I want you to show me how you’d tackle it.” 

The scenario was totally non-technical, which is to say “open to interpretation”, and my nervousness evaporated. I went to the whiteboard and began straightaway using lots of buzzwords and arrows and circles. I asked questions to suggest competence, and let him ask me questions in turn – which, perhaps because of his natural reticence, were few. To further gain his confidence, I began to punctuate my answers with small forward movements of my head to further convince him of their essential rightness, and he responded in kind. Like the volunteers in many magical demonstrations, he was mirroring my behavior.

Because of the effectiveness of my showmanship, I felt compelled to slowly but steadily raise the intensity by modulating my tone and deepening my head bobs. This was the right thing to do: Eventually, his agreement with me was so complete that his whole upper torso was rocking in a rhythm with my answers, and my mind drifted to Hooke’s Law (about the physics of springs) in the context of how long bobbleheads lasted.  

Alas, all good things must come to an end: Our time ran out, and, with a small nod, my host bid me farewell and good luck. I was left alone in the sterile white room with only my scribblings on the whiteboard to keep me company. “So far so good,” I thought to myself. I was playing with house money.

Soon the door opened and a new interviewer appeared. He stood about my height and had a full head of grey hair, the top of which took the shape of a slice of Chicago deep-dish pizza. My initial thought was that he was lucky to have so much hair and simultaneously unfortunate that it had grown in this way. But my second impression was quickly dispelled: Upon releasing my hand from the introductory shake, as he stepped backwards, a solitary drop of water fell from the sharpened tip. He had intentionally prepared his hair in this way.

He tapped his fingers on the table and glanced at his watch and fiddled with his computer, and I recognized again the absence of the traditional second interviewer. But my first interviewer grew impatient and told me that the other interviewer should be here soon and then said, “Let’s get started. I want to mix things up a bit – go ahead and ask me some questions about the company.” 

From my recent interviewing at other companies I was prepared with many open-ended questions (“Tell me about the culture here”, “How does this compare with your other jobs”, etc.) that also had the side effect of “running out the clock” by not letting the interviewer get in any hard questions.

After an extended and effective period of this vacuous Q & A, I heard a shuffling of feet and the creak of the door opening. A tall, puffy-faced balding man in glasses appeared, unsmiling. My first interviewer continued to answer one of my bland-but-time-consuming queries, but decorum compelled me to acknowledge our new addition with a smile and a “hello”. In response, the second interviewer stared coldly at me with hooded eyes and gave no acknowledgement in return. He unsmilingly settled into his seat but never took his eyes from mine.

My first interviewer was just wrapping up his latest answer by saying “and that’s pretty much all I’ve got to say about that, “ and the second, again without taking his eyes off me, said to the first one with disdain: “Are you done?” The first meekly said yes and assumed a submissive stance, with the sharply coiffed tip of his hair tilted slightly downward.

Having taken command of the situation, the second leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and, with a faint look of disgust said to me in a low voice, “Tell me what kind of people you hate.”

Reeling from the surprise of his question, I stumbled through an attempt at answering, saying, “Well, uh, I believe it’s more a question of communication styles. In my experience, I think it’s important to develop a solid rapport with people, showing them that you understand and respect their position…” and so on, hoping I could wear him down with the sheer volume and hypnotic head bobs that had worked so well earlier. Unfortunately, he seemed wise to my tricks and was having none of it. He cut me off and said through clenched teeth, “What do you stand for?”

I feared the answer might be “The Constitution” because if he decided to drill down I couldn’t quote it chapter and verse. After an uncomfortable silence that felt much longer than it actually was, I nervously stammered out a few things about things I liked and I didn’t like. But he continued to hold my feet to the fire and said with contempt, “If you stand for everything, you stand for nothing!” and placed both of his hands on the table and leaned towards me menacingly.

I was coming to grips with the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to talk myself through this by suggesting he use gestalt to piece it together from my stream of consciousness. And I felt trapped: Even if the answer was “the sanctity of marriage” I was no better off. But by then my nervousness had given way to irritation and, setting my jaw, I settled on the seemingly irrefutable answer “fairness”.

And with that, my inquisitor seemed to relax and lean back in his chair, perhaps feeling he’d broken my will, or, based on the smug look on his face, at least humiliated me a little by goading me into what was surely the wrong answer.

Having apparently met his objective, the second interviewer looked at his watch and concluded that their time was up. As if none of the previous altercation had happened, he smiled and politely said goodbye and good luck, and led the first out, leaving me alone to lick my wounds.

After a short interval, again I heard the creak of the door, which opened to reveal a very pretty Asian woman and a young gay man. With a winning smile, she introduced them as the “business team” and said they were “much nicer” than the other interviewers, and then grinned conspiratorially at her partner. I noticed that when she spoke, it was with the polish and confident authority of a valedictorian that had been showered with praise since preschool.

But as she sat down, I also immediately noticed what appeared to be a black pen mark between the bottom of her nose and the top of her upper lip. As she spoke with a friendly smile and enthusiasm, I struggled to concentrate on her words. I thought to myself, “Should I tell her? If it were me, I would want someone to tell me. It would be so much more embarrassing to find out later,” and so on, until I realized that it was a small mole.

And yet even with this realization, it was virtually impossible to get the sharpie mark/mole out of my mind. Fortunately, despite the mental fog created by my many thoughts about it, I heard her ask me questions about things that I had heavily rehearsed the answers for, to which I waxed lyrical for about 20 minutes. As if bobbleheads made in China and freshly released from their packaging, they both nodded continuously throughout.

And then using her superior and less-fogged intellect to steer the discussion, she asked if I had any questions for them. During our introductions (and before my preoccupation had made concentration difficult), I had ascertained that he’d been there much longer, starting in the mail room and arriving at his current position by pulling himself up by his bootstraps – good news for me because I remained concerned that I would be caught staring at her mole, so I asked him to tell me about his experience at the company.

He enthusiastically responded, “Ooh yes!” and then launched into a dramatic description of his career. Trying to clear out any sharpie-related thoughts, I vigorously encouraged him with comments like “Oh really?”, liberally sprinkling the appropriate widened eyes and eyebrow raises. Unfortunately, by doing this I had been inadvertently negging my Asian beauty by depriving her of my attentions, and she sternly broke in saying, “What did you mean by that last question? Did you mean,” and thankfully she proceeded to provide a complete answer, to which I responded, “Why yes,” and parroted back her answer.

Again, time had expired. However, as they escorted me to the elevator I sensed that my negging had resulted in a small but undeniable emotional scar – her responses to my post-interview small talk were rebuffed with one-word answers, and her underling, sensing a career-enhancing opportunity, followed suit. As we walked, she turned and spoke to him in a quiet voice, sharing a joke that I couldn’t quite hear after which they stifled their laughs. When we arrived at the elevator she turned to me and put on a perfect smile and, on their behalf, thanked me so much for my time, and wished me good luck.

For the next couple of hours, I went over the interview in my head, but I couldn’t come to a conclusion about what they may have thought. Was the mirrored head bobbing faked? Was the answer “The United States of America”? Was I indeed too obvious staring at her mole?

But then the recruiter called me and said, “I don’t know what you said to them, but they LOVED you!” and said the next steps should be coming soon…