7:15 I stroll through the door, dressed to the nines: suit pants, tie, jacket, the appropriate amount of cologne considering I am to be interviewed by the same woman that called. We'll call her Ann, and she met me only after about a five minute wait, which I utilized making the usual small talk with the receptionist. Ann walks me back to a small room not big enough to stretch your legs out in. I sat at one end of the small desk that divided the room into two equal parts and as she went to grab me a bottled water, I took in everything the "office" had to offer. It was decorated with a couple of advertising pieces of success stories about the students at ITT, and how they are living the life of their dreams now after graduation and a similar poster on the adjacent wall describing the course of study at the institution. There was a computer monitor that took up about a third of desk, powered down, and harsh florescent beamed down upon me for the few moments it took for her to return. The ambiance felt like more of an interrogation room than a place of conducting business, and the atmosphere was just a prelude of things to come.
After her return, I slid Ann a copy of my resume (which they already had, hence the reason they called me) and she pulled out a neatly stapled, three page cookie-cutter interview sheet, the likes of which I have become very familiar with. What I was not expecting was that this sheet was merely a prop to set the stage and make me feel comfortable. No question she asked was from this page, rather, she spent the next 10 minutes grilling me on my experience, qualifications, and tenure at the positions listed in my resume. She was like a dog on a school boy's homework and proceeded to rip apart my specially crafted resume, exploiting any holes in employment, and more concerned about how I left a company than the work I accomplished there. Repetitive questions designed to trip me up and catch me in a lie (which she might very well have done, had I not been your beloved Job Hound), all boil down to her revealing that this is just the preliminary process, and before I knew it she was now on her way to "see if the Director was available" and continue with round two.
I can hear her and the Director speaking in another sardine can across the hall, the door to my can was closed so all I could make out was the sound of voices and not actual conversation but I knew they were talking about The Hound. After about 5 minutes Ann returns with the Director, we'll call him Kent, a late forties/early fifties shorter man whose hair line had receded back to about the top of his skull, and whose father obviously never taught him how to tie a tie. What the man lacked in physical appeal he made up for in brain power, and I soon learned that was the name of the game when dealing with this fellow. He fired off about three or four questions in regard to my resume at about a mile a minute, and I quickly went from feeling like an interrogation victim to an assassination victim. This guy was sharp, and the fact that I had the two of them crammed in on one side of the desk and me on the other didn't help either. It was like an episode of good cop/bad cop, and Shiny McBaldspot was trying to get me to sweat. The Hound is used to these type of interrogation tactics when it comes to job interviews though, and like a Judo master used their own force against them.
When asked why they should take a chance on me, I told them they shouldn't, that there were plenty of people obviously more qualified for the position than I. This caused them to take a step back, and I could almost see Kent removing his finger from the red button that would have opened up the secret hatch beneath my chair and dropped me into their hidden shark tank. I asked why they were hiring in the first place (obviously having THE most superior education institution known to man), that surely talent should be begging to come in to work for them. This caught them off guard, they weren't used to people calling their bluff, and they lightened up a bit after that.
By that time though, I had lost interest. I didn't even bother to ask follow up questions after they had finished. I knew what they were about, and hopefully you should too now.
I don't like the idea of companies or corporations who start thinking that their sh*t doesn't stink, that they're better than me, better than you, and better than anyone else who they should decide to invite in. They called me, remember? I've been down that road before my friends and it leads to a whole lot of stress and insecurity when it comes to your job. Those are the "what have you done for me lately" kind of gigs. I knew they were a bit shady going in after reading this, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/for-profit-college-recruiters-documents_n_820337.html, but I had to see for myself. The salary is good, benefits are good, and if you feel like this is your niche, have at it Haus. Every dog has his day, maybe today is yours.
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