Hiring manager just called me to set up a full day interview next week. I’ve never been through something like this so was hoping for some pointers.
Background - First interview was over the phone back in mid December for about one hour. Found out then that I was one of three candidates they were seriously considering. They had no budget to fly in candidates but wanted to know if I was going to be in their neck of the woods anytime soon. (Weird considering they’re offering a relocation package that will likely cost them around $40k.) Luck had it that I planned on attending a conference there in the second week of January. Hiring manager said he would be willing to wait until then so I wouldn’t have to pay for a plane ticket. He wanted me to write a report for them within a week which I sent. Never heard back so I thought my ticket was up. Surprised to hear from him today. He apologized for not calling earlier.
Just ask them for the format of the interview and they’ll tell you.
My guess is that you’re just having 3 or so normal interviews (your manager, a team member, and then the big boss for a rubber stamp interview) and some other fluff (meet HR, tour of the facilities). It’s probably all day just so they can fit you in with people’s busy schedule.
Yeah, basically, they will have many people interview you one by one. As the other guy said, normally, the less important people talk to you first, and the final boss battle is at the end.
The interviewers generally don’t prepare much. So, a lot of them will just walk in and be like “what’s up”. Some guy usually asks weird brainteaser questions - usually it’s one of the young guys. Old people tend to just feel around for cultural fit.
Not sure what they will be doing with the report you wrote, but it seems like at least one person will have read it and will ask you detailed questions.
Hopefully you can expect lunch at some point. I had an interview with the west coast team of a group in their NY offices by teleconference. By the end of the day, it was apparent that they hadn’t considered that sometime between 8am and 4pm might be a good time to let their interviewee consume more than a glass of water.
Even if they were too cheap to feed me, maybe it would be prudent to give me time to go get something.
They were risk managers too.
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At other times when I’ve had full-day interviews, I’ve generally meet with the hiring manager at both the beginning and end of the day, and a bunch of potential co-workers, plus an HR person over the day. Usually they are trying to gauge your fit with the culture, but they will also probe your resume just to make sure that you aren’t overstating stuff and to figure out how much you are likely to be able to handle (not necessarily in a stressful way, although some firms like to do stress interviews to).
Three hours was the longest interview I’ve had and it royally sucked. A full day sounds hellish especially for a painfully shy introverted geek like me. I got grilled pretty hard in the first interview and the report I wrote should be a good gauge of my competence for the job. Hopefully, I’ll get a free lunch out of it but I guess I can’t count on it.
Thanks for the comments gentlemen. If everything goes well I might be moving to the Bay area in a few weeks.
I’ve had a 7 hour interview day before. Yea I was taken to a really fancy lunch, too bad I was being grilled with questions and didn’t get to enjoy it. I got the job though.
Sorry for bumping an old thread, but I do have a question that someone can hopefully answer. Has anyone here been a part of a committee that will make the decision on hiring someone? If so, could the other people in the committee outvote the head manager?
I interviewed with 10 people and all of them went really well except with the head cheese. Right from the start, he was flicking a paper clip between his fingers and was constantly looking at his cell phone. He was extremely cynical of all my answers. The interview didn’t develop into this situation but started this way. I wasn’t prepared for someone to be so hostile. I believe it went really well with the other four people that are on the committee though. My original contact (also on the committee) was actually giving me pointers on how to talk to the other interviewers.
It was definitely a painful process, and I felt like a punching bag near the end. They took me to a nice restaurant, but I also did not enjoy it. Every time I was about to take a bite of food, a question came up. And I got a brainteaser question which was really annoying.
You mean the head cheese of the firm, or the head cheese as in the guy who will be your direct manager?
If he’s the firm head cheese, then it’s possible that he will say “They’re your employee, so if you can deal with them, go ahead and do it.” If the head cheese is the person you’ll be reporting to, then there’s no way the rest of the committee will overrule him unless they somehow make a convincing argument that actually makes him change his mind.
Normally, in a corporate IB setting, several people have equal say, since the HR person assembles a committee out of similarly ranked people. In a small company, it probably depends on the dynamics of the team and the personality of the boss. I can imagine the boss being like “yeah, up to you guys”, or putting his foot down. There might also be a chance that the junior members are sycophantic and agree with the boss to suck up.
The head cheese is the head of the research department but there are two layers between us. I believe the head of the money funds and the head of the mutual funds are also part of the committee. So I guess this is more of the IB type of setting that ohai was referring to which works to my benefit. Nerve racking waiting for a decision. Thanks for the response gentlemen.
The head cheese ALWAYS has veto power. There is no question if he does or does not. The only question is if he decides to say something to knock you out.
I’ve been on 4 job searches in the past 5 years, I know this game all too well. It could literally have been 100% intentional to see how you react under pressure, do you defend yourself? do you deflate? how does your body language react to this? because clients can do this to you, it’s a real thing.
The best thing you can do is continue to seem motivated, seem engaged, answer the questions as best you can. the rest is out of your hands
I had a 4 hour long interview today consisting of a case presentation, a written exercise, 2 different interviews, and a group exercise. By the end you’re just worn out. I should know by the end of week if I have the job. Best of luck to you!
Sorry again for bumping an old thread. Been busy at work - LBOs are murder on credit folks. Anyway, I thought an update was in order.
I emailed my HR contact after a week to see if there was an update. I thought I was the last person they were interviewing, so I was getting a little nervous. She spoke to the hiring manager and gave me a call. I was actually the first person they interviewed. They’ll finish with the third and final candidate in early February. The second thing she relayed to me was that the hiring manager got really good feedback from everyone I interviewed with, including the head cheese. As iteracom mentioned, his demeanor during our interview may have been intentional to see how I would react. I likely had the deer-in-headlights glare a few times, but I know I was very polite during the interview. I’ll bump this thread again when I get news.
Unfortunately, no. Pesky 2a-7 rules won’t allow spec grade in money markets. How exciting would that be, trying to keep a $1 NAV with junk bonds. I’m all for it! I might occasionally look at some ‘BB’ credits but nothing under distress.