As with the other reviewers for the Project and Program Management positions, I also went through the group interview. As with the others, it started with a case study where we were to be given an hour, but in reality were only given about 50 minutes because the session started 10 minutes late. After the case study, there were the numerous leadership/team building exercises which I won’t go into detail about. They were nice enough to provide lunch, snacks and drinks, so I will give them that. After the exercises and the lunch, which all told took about 4 hours, 1 person out of 12 was chosen to move on to the face to face interviews. The other 11 were summarily dismissed with a thank you for coming, but no other explanation.
So this is the bit that will come across as sour grapes on my part, because I wasn’t the one chosen. Being honest with myself, I wouldn’t have been a good fit for this organization, so I hold no grudge in that respect. Where I do have issue with the process is that in the Interviewers eyes, they deemed that only 1 person out of 12 was worthy of their additional time and effort. That only 1 person out of 12 would “fit” their special culture. To top it off, the 1 person chosen was already a Scott & White employee, looking for an internal move to the PMO. Meanwhile, 11 other people, some of whom drove from as far away as Austin on their own dime, some of whom had to take vacation time, were left wondering why they just drove 50 miles for a free lunch and to play games?
There is no doubt that the PMO Director is very bright, and she has the resume to prove it. And it is apparent from the other reviews on this site that they have been using the same process going on 3 years now. From the 5 other reviews listed, along with my experience, over 90 people have participated in this exercise, with only 13 people moving on for actual face to face interviews, with no idea on how many offers were actually extended. And this is only taking into account those people who have taken the time to add a review. There is no telling how many times others have been subjected to this process.
I understand the importance of finding the right people for your organization, and in doing the due diligence to determine if a candidate has the necessary skills to perform the job, however I think this “interview” approach, no matter how cutting edge they think it is, is laziness on their part. It is quite apparent that the folks conducting this “interview” value their time over that of the interviewee. There is no pre-screening interview, and they obviously have a search engine which goes through online resumes looking for key words which they target. If you are going to ask somebody to commit four hours of their day, and whatever gas money it takes to get to the interview, you owe that person an assessment of why they either didn’t fit your team dynamic, or where their competencies were lacking. That feedback would be valuable to any job seeker, give them something to build on, and make the effort a little more worthwhile.
I have no illusions that this review will impact the way this Director conducts her interviews in the future. My only goal is to alert potential job seekers about what they are in for if they get an email inviting them to a casual group interview with the PMO Director in Temple, Texas.