The Team Player Interview

The Team Player InterviewI figured this would be a great topic to kick off Super Bowl week. I once heard about a company that had multiple openings for similar positions and brought all of their candidates in for a day of interviewing at the same time. They had games and activities that the candidates worked on together — one such activity was creating a new cheer for the company. What was interesting is that some of the candidates figured that coming up with the best cheer, or at a least a cheer better than everyone else’s, would land them the job. Turns out it didn’t.

Interviews where all of the candidates are brought in together can be tricky – more so than even the dreaded “team interview”. On one hand, you at least know who you’re up against for the opening. But on the other, the way you present yourself and act around the other candidates says more about you than you realize. I once went on one such interview and found it to be weird. First, seven of us were all brought in to take a standardized test. It felt like I was taking the SATs all over again. A week later, we were all invited back to have lunch with the IT management team —all together.