I completed an application online. I was called for an interview a few weeks later. The interview lasted about an hour. There was one interviewer, the HR manager for the company. He was very cordial, and provided useful information about Murray Guard. We had an honest discussion and a real conversation. He asked at the end of the interview if I was still interested in the job. I said yes, because I was at the time. He said the next step was an interview with a higher up on the operational side (a regional manager perhaps). He said I would hear back one way or the other within a week or two, and that MG/he did not like to leave applicants hanging - I really appreciated that. He did call back a few weeks later, and asked if I was interested in coming in for the next interview. I said I thought about it, and decided the job just wasn't a good fit for me at that time so I declined. He said I was the most qualified applicant, and again, I told him I really appreciated hearing that. Applicants get so little feedback these days.
There are at least two other factors about this interview that I really liked. First, there was no panel. Panels are usually a really bad experience for me. While I enjoy people, I find the panel interview is usually going to be an ambush. Most of them are, intentionally or not. On a good day, they have some variation of good cop, bad cop going on. And the panelists don't usually have any formal HR or interviewing education, training, or skills (or their training, such as it is, is bad). They know what they can't ask by law, but that's about it. Now I get that organizations protect themselves by using a panel, but one good, well-trained HR person is far superior than 90% of panels. What ends up happening is the panel tries to establish faults instead of looking for strengths in a candidate. So for the applicant it becomes an impossible task - it becomes a matter of guessing what a fault might look to 3 people instead of one. It turns something I can only describe as negative judgement theater. Determining who has the least acceptable faults and going with them.
I'm an introvert, I relate to people one-on-one best. I am not a performing pony in a circus act. I am not a gregarious, charming sociopath, which is the best purple squirrel who will get past some of these panels, someone everyone in the panel salivates over. Good luck with that employee.
The other factor then was this interviewer was a good judge of character. He could see the forest in addition to the trees. As an HR professional, he knew his job well, and apparently is trusted to do it by company management. So I was a little disappointed to not move forward with the process.
