My last interview was in 2 stages…first was fairly informal and just a get to know you/us to see if we were all on the same page. I already knew a few of them from being on the same and opposite sides of the table on various bits of work over the years.
Second was with a couple of the board and head of legal and someone from HR from one of our other offices in europe. More formal, but got a peach of a question from the HR person towards the end:
“On X deal last year, you were on the other side of the table to us and I understand that you didn’t handle X issue very well and we were not particularly impressed by that. Would you mind talking about that for a moment?”
Silence.
“My client got what it wanted and you didn’t, so I handled it correctly. It’s irrelevant whether you were impressed or not. I’m a bit surprised by this to be honest.” (it probably wasn’t as abrupt at this though, I was still trying to be nice so maybe dressed it up a bit, I can’t remember exactly but that was the jist)
I was really pissed off and a little shaken (although I immediately thought that’s what they were trying for)! Interview had been going really well until this point.
Silence. Everyone except the HR person looks at each other really sheepishly then the head of legal pipes up:
“Sorry. HR wanted to see how you would respond to criticism. Maybe if HR is done now they wouldn’t mind leaving us to sort through some finer details?”
HR person gets up and leaves and everyone apologises and looks very embarrassed. Apparently he was new and didn’t even last until I started a few months later!