Dear Liz,
I have to tell you about my incredible job interview with the VP of Culture at a company I worked with for several years. I work for myself, and this company was a consulting client of mine beginning in 2011.
During the time I partnered with this company, I never heard anyone mention a VP of Culture or even the name of anyone in HR.
I worked with the heads of Sales and Marketing.
The VP of Marketing, Allison, asked me if I would consider a full-time role on her team, and I said yes.
I already knew Allison and her team well.
Allison and I had dinner and talked about the role. We got squared away on compensation and goals. Then I met separately with Allison's boss, the COO.
Allison left me a voice mail message and said "The VP of Culture wants to meet you, also." Allison had a tone in her voice that made me wonder about the VP of Culture, but I had an open mind.
I was driving to the grocery store the next day when the VP of Culture, "Susan," called me. She dove right into her interview questions.
"Rate yourself as a leader on a scale of one to ten!" she said.
I said "Honestly, I'm a strong leader in some situations and a less-capable leader in other situations. I'm not sure I can faithfully boil all that down to one number. Would it be helpful if I told you a leadership story or two?”
“I didn’t ask for a story,” said Susan curtly. “I asked for a numeral between one and ten. Is that complicated?”
I was shocked. The irony of a person calling themselves VP of Culture and then being so rude was overwhelming, but I wanted to try to appease evil Susan if I could.
“Eight and a half,” I said, and Susan said “Smart-ass answer! I bet I know why. You’ve been consulting with our team before applying for this job, so you figure you’ve got the job in the bag.”
I didn’t tell Susan that both her company’s VP of Marketing and her COO had already told me point-blank that I had the job in the bag. Susan went on.