I will need to evaluate and interview a number of candidates in the next few weeks and I've discovered that I'm almost as stressed out about being the interviewer as I was a few years ago about being the interviewee. I guess I wouldn't be so nervous if it was a standard superday but:
- this is off-cycle recruitment for pretty senior people (think managers/VPs/senior managers)
- I'm a level below in terms of seniority
- I have ~4 years of work experience and they have 10-15 (I flipped through their CVs)
- I don't feel competent to assess such candidates
- I have no benchmark so I have no idea how I will tell whether they did well or not - I will only be able to tell whether I would like to work with them or not
- due to special circumstances that I cannot disclose I have to do it whether I want it or not
- If one/some of them gets hired and he/she ends up being my manager it will feel very weird
So I guess my questions are: how would you approach this? Did you feel nervous when you first started interviewing people? I have never interviewed anyone. Any advice on how to evaluate candidates with a lot more work experience than me?
That's crazy. I mean if they're experienced I'm sure they'll be mature enough to respect you as the interviewer regardless of how senior they are. You show them the same respect while still establishing yourself as the interviewer and hopefully it won't be more awkward than it has to be
this is quite interesting, its actually not a bad idea
i'm sure you will not be the only one interviewing them, so in addition to the obvious, their problem solving capabilities, working under stress, communication, etc
you can actually see if you would like to work with him as a manager in the future - whether he can manage a team, including their lifestyle - manage/push back to leadership and clients
I don't see how this is a problem....I 'informally' interviewed several potential associates as a first year analyst at a BB
same... this is pretty common... maybe not as common as interviewing people 5-10 years more work experience, but the same logic still applies
In my opinion, it's not as weird as you think. Firstly, I assume you won't be the only person interviewing them? Makes sense that they'd want a junior person's perspective on future hires as well.
For what it's worth, once when I was an INTERN, I was asked to interview a guy who was being considered for a spot at the VP level or higher. I thought it would be strange, but it ended up not awkward at all. Just had a normal conversation. Don't stress at all.
I have had to interview analysts as an an analyst in both of my roles (my current one I have been in for
Thanks guys, that's very helpful. I got stressed because I was also contacted by the headhunter who found these people and she wants to discuss their resumes with me so I assumed I would need to evaluate their capabilities. From your experience it sounds more like I will assess whether they are a good fit and most likely it won't a be a one-on-one interview. That doesn't make me nervous at all, sounds more like an exciting opportunity to have an influence over who I will be working with in the future. Thanks!
Tempore qui deserunt rem et sint ex. Inventore nobis unde beatae repellendus quo. Odio blanditiis voluptatum id molestiae unde illo sint.
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