interview quesiton (from the other side)

[globetrotter]

we are hiring somebody who will be a peer, and I am on the committee that is hiring him.

in the interview, I asked a few questions, and I said "with as much details as possible, please tell me about when you did X" I pushed to get as much detail as possible. the candidate answered "we would do this, we would do that" all generalities. I pushed a few times. no luck.

I did like what he said, his theory is sound, and if he did what he said he did, then he is a good candidate.

I set a follow up one on one appointment, and I said "look, the reason that I wanted to meet you again is that I would like to hear more detail about the stuff that you said. I would like names, dates, details, as much as you can. don't worry about boring me". I asked him four questions, 3 about specific parts of his job "tell me about executing X, from the first meeting about it until you passed it off to your customer in as much specific detail as possible". he would say "well, we would think about this, and we would discuss that" but no detail.

then, I asked him about his first 90 days at his last company, and he spoke in a lot of first person detail.


I am suspicious of him, I get the feeling that he might be taking credit for work somebody else did, or something.

am I being hypercritical?

 

[ter1413]

Possibly.
If you are interested, followup with a call and tell him that you are. Tell him that one of your "reservations" is that you feel he isn't being specific enough in his responses. Ball is in his court....

 

[CYstyle]

Could also be he's modest, feels wrong taking credit for results that he feels his team all worked equally hard to accomplish. First 90 days typically there's some training and observation etc. more work on yourself rather while you get accustomed to the firm, the team work comes 60+ days later I suppose.

 

[ter1413]

First 90 days at my job I tried to not fall asleep and pretended that I was working....

 

[Master-Classter]

I think you're on to something. Ie maybe the team or someone else was working with him to make it happen so he's taking credit but can only really do it as a "we" instead of an "I".


Can you just call the former employer or manager and find out that way?




oh, wanna hear my most devious interview question?
"What question did you think I was going to ask you that I didn't? and what would your answer have been?"
(sometimes it's a positive question, which gives them a chance to boast a little about something they're proud of, or more often it's something they're secretly worried about and just because they don't have anything else to say, they'll tell you all their worst fears/problems)

 

[Concordia]

I once worked with a committee mostly staffed with IT people. At the tail end of the 90s boom, they were talking about job applicants with all sorts of tech experience on their resumes. One of the guys-- who ran the tech part of a major museum-- would smoke them out by saying in an interview "we just had Cisco deliver a Series PLN Framkaminator. What does it do, and what would you plug in first?" The candidates whose last job was playing Fusball and waiting for the IPO melted away pretty fast.

Don't know if this is what you have, but it's worth a few phone calls.