CONFESSIONS OF A SERIAL INTERVIEWER: Interviewing the politically correct weirdo
I started working for a PE fund in mid 2009 and was involved with recruiting additional staff into a rapidly growing business.
In reality, any recruitment was mostly due to staff attrition as everyone was ritually abused for 16 hours a day for sub-market wages. Last year was a buyers' market, and this became ever-more obvious as I interviewed a steady stream of candidates for a thankless role in a shady company.
Depressingly, I interviewed scores of good candidates, clearly as smart and as experienced as myself (or if I am honest, far more capable - I was lucky to have the job). My role was to set and administer the technical modelling test and conduct the first round interview before the principal used any of his sacred time in meeting anyone. If the modelling test wasn't up to scratch, it was a matter of "don't call us, we'll call you".
One of the guys who interviewed had worked for the PE arm of an American bank for a few years before cracking, throwing in the towel, and heading off to South East Asia to hug trees, get a dolphin tattoo and watch the financial world meltdown, reefer in hand.
The guy was sharp, but really weird. His hair was standing on end and had a ridiculous little beard perched on his chin.
Before he even started the modelling test, he demanded to know about the company. As luck would have it the, PE fund shared a name with a mercenary operation (which owned the .com domain)! He'd checked out the board members, all of whom he protested were fictitious or had dubious military backgrounds. Legal council (because everyone trusts a lawyer,
right?) was called over and put him at ease. Hans got cracking on the modelling test.
After the 3 hour test, we went through to have the first round interview (he labelled the file with his name and "...is HIRED.xls").
After the usual "tell me about your team", who reported to you, the deals you closed etc. I explain that the company was essentially a start-up and that we were "all hands on deck" at the moment. I give him a "day in the life" scenario. After all, we would have to share a single intern to do coffee and lunch runs! Dark days indeed.
We finally got to the personal "cultural fit" questions. He then started back up with the mercenary rant. It reached the point of ridiculousness when he started quoting the website of the mercenary operation, which claims to combat "destructive ideological viruses such as Socialism".
He eventually calmed down and the interview ended. Hans finally switched to giving me interview advice and telling me how he would have interviewed himself!
He then asked me for a business card as he leaves. I apologise and say that I did not have one (which was true, technically I worked for an associate company of the master fund). I then added, "I work for one of the offshore affiliates". Hans' eyes widened.
"You know Hans, there is nothing wrong with having a military background, many of our more opportunistic ventures require unorthodox measures to provide our clients the solutions they pay for."
If only excel modelling was as much fun as winding up hippies...
