I had a very "interesting" interview in the city I told you all about today. I'm afraid however, that the process was fatally flawed.
As you may recall I received a call from them a little over a week ago inviting me to interview. I didn't remember ever applying there but accepted the invitation anyway. I don't have the luxury of turning down interviews anymore. I asked them to send me a job description and they did. It arrived in the mail Saturday and I didn't see it until yesterday. The description was for a part time position. That didn't seem right so I went for the interview anyway.
I arrived there after a three hour drive early so I could learn something about the City before the interview. I had been having difficulty finding any information on line. It is a beautiful place with a little over 4,000 residents and growing rapidly. I also arrived 10-15 minutes early for the interview itself, which was scheduled for 4:00 p.m., and let them know I was there. After a while the City Clerk came out and said they didn't know if the Mayor would be on time or not but they would start without him if he was late. The Mayor was late so the interview began without him, just the Police Chief, City Clerk and myself.
They began asking some prepared questions and I was wondering how this was going to work considering City Administrators report to the Mayor and the people interviewing me would report to me should I be selected. The Mayor showed up about 15 minutes late. He had apparently been to the doctor. The interview continued with the Mayor taking his turn at asking questions.
All in all, I think things were going pretty well until they asked me if I had questions. Among other things, I asked about the job description mentioning it was a part time position. The Clerk said it must have been a very old description because they were looking for a full time interim. Until then I didn't know it was an interim position. I said that would work and asked if they had ever done a position announcement or anything that said what the salary range is. They said that, "I would have to discuss that with with an executive search firm I had worked with about a year ago". I said, "----------? Is --------- in this process somehow?" They looked at me with shocked looks and said, "Yes, you were referred by them". The Mayor then began shuffling through the papers he had and asked me if I had ever worked overseas. I said, "no". He asked me a couple of other questions to which I also replied, "no".
The Mayor announced that the resume for the person they thought they were interviewing was not mine. He said he didn't have a resume for me. I supplied them with a resume and we began to try to figure out what was going on. The Mayor said all he had was my cover letter. I said I didn't recall sending them a cover letter and asked to see what he had. He showed me the e-mail I sent to search firm back in April telling them I was available again. It had been copied with a sticky note in the middle of it, which made it only partially legible. That's the only information they had on me.
The interview was abruptly over and I began the drive back home, embarrassed and bewildered.
I'm guessing that I won't be hearing from them regarding employment.
:wah: :-5
Maybe it was just a weird dream.
Schooling results in matriculation. Education is a process that changes the learner.
