From Interviewee to Interviewer

Today I had a very weird experience. One of the older guys I work with stayed at home because he was sick. Because of this, a candidate the team is interviewing had one less person to go to lunch with. So I got subbed in.

It's weird being on the other side. Especially when just a month ago I was in the interviewee spot for the same position. Add on that the two people they are interviewing both have Masters degrees and are older then me....very odd.

The first thing I learned is that interviewers think most of the questions are stupid. What they are really concerned about is your personality and that they aren't going to need to hold your hand in your first days or that they won't strangle you after a few months. My team was all talking about how anyone with a Food Science degree can technically do our job, what really matters is their capability to communicate well with a bajillion people and they can handle the stress. 

I also learned how important it is to answer interview questions in a way that someone would want to ask more questions. It was so awkward when she would answer a question in a way that it ended the conversation. Everyone was uncomfortable.

What I couldn't believe was this girl's resume. It was three pages long, it had jobs from when she was in high school (which was 8 years ago for her), it was poorly organized, it had a weird border, and she wrote "I worked in the lab and while I was there I.....*list of things she did*" She actually broke every rule I could think of with resumes. It was frustrating.

She also looked at her phone during lunch, admitted to never having tried the companies products, and said she didn't do much for one of her internships. Maybe its because I was overly trained for finding a job, but I was very horrified. 

It really surprised me being on the other side how bad a candidate could be. And this girl wasn't even the worst my team had seen. Im nervous to have to interview people in the future. 

It was a very exciting 6th day of work. Mainly I spend most of my time training and shadowing. And eating an endless amount of ice cream. Today I also got to eat plain caramel filling and my team was slightly concerned with how much I was eating. I can't help it. It's delicious.