At times - and not so rare, I might say - I come across situations where the interviewer is halfway interested due to being tired or not focused. I am not talking graduate HR recruitment wheel. I am talking senior managers who have selected your resume, went through the trouble of freeing the busy agenda for a meeting, and yet, you feel like they want to be elsewhere.
I recently was interviewed by a representative of a very successful company for the role of my dreams, yet … he was not 100% there. The guy was immersed into studying the formulations in my letters of recommendation, hardly listening to what I was telling him. Whenever I tried to reiterate on my motivation, skill set or the CFA program - he would delve into talking about internal moments I could not respond to. Due to his non-finance background, he of course has never heard of the CFA program and was asking pretty obvious questions about my skill set leaving me greatly surprised given my work experience, academic background and his position.
Now I am thinking about reiterating my skill set and abilities in a thank you letter.
One one hand, this situation deserves fighting. This is my dream job and a fantastic company.
On the other hand, insufficient interest is hard to beat.
How do you handle these situations? Thank you letters are not part of local business culture yet they sometimes can turn the situation around. I once managed to persuade the decision-maker to rule in my favor but, honestly, working in a climate where you are not wanted is far from fair play. Especially in a role where I would probably need to go wider frontiers in terms of responsibility. While this role was written out as a “can do” position without extras, the interviewer implied yet avoided to elaborate on much greater level of responsbility which I do not mind assuming but in a receptive business climate.
