Overkill.....

I am staggered by many things, in fact, most things....but nothing bemuses me much more than unnecessary interview processes.

The process which always used to amuse me the most was Kent Police when they recruited forensic analysts.  To say it struck me as overkill is a complete understatement - suffice to say they had to hire half the office space in London just to cope with the masses invited for the initial assessment.  If successful in this task there were just another three hundred or so stages before a potential offer was made.  If you applied by age six you were potentially looking at starting work before retirement age along with the other ‘lucky’ applicants.

I am sure it was a thorough process (to say the very least) and to be fair, they did recruit some outstanding people, but was it really the best way to select candidates for a first role in forensics – or any role for that matter?  As you may just have gathered, I think it was way over the top and wasted the time of lots of people.  

However, recently I have seen an increase in never-ending processes for more senior people in both forensics and ED, including the dreaded panel interview.  Of course, for an important role you need to ensure you have found the person with the skills for the role blah, blah, blah.... but, surely, the key to the whole process is a frank discussion between hiring manager and jobseeker?

A jobseeker wants to work with people who really want to understand what they are all about and how they can contribute to the work that needs to be done.  This must mean that the main - and only genuinely significant - interview is a frank conversation between the hiring manager explaining the issues faced and the jobseeker explaining how they will successfully complete the work.

Anything else is purely padding, isn’t it?

Keep it interesting

Like you, I have sat at numerous conferences (occasionally even presenting when the organisers are really struggling) and have often been bored to tears by most of the presentations.   At INFOSEC this year, one particular presenter was well dressed, successful (bewilderingly), and quite possibly the first walking, talking, human sedative who just kept plugging his product in a monotone voice for what seemed like hours.  Ok, so I hadn’t paid to listen but it was still 45 minutes of my life that I wasn’t going to get back and if he had droned on for much longer there was a genuine possibility that my life was going to shortly end – well it was either going to be mine or his and from a utilitarian viewpoint I think I almost had justification!

I was reminded of this presentation today when a really outstanding Computer Forensics candidate was unsuccessful at interview due to being, well, just too boring.  As I have said in numerous articles, in my experience recruiting in this sector, the reason most Computer Forensics people fail to be successful at interview is because their personality goes out of the window and they become just like the Infosec presenter – a robot just answering technical questions in a tedious manner.  

I do appreciate that when an interview has a strong technical content it is hard to avoid this but being aware that it can be an issue has to be the first step to countering it along with ensuring you keep smiling ( but not in that weird way employed by most MP’s), and making lots of eye contact.

As some very wise person once said (probably after a few drinks): ‘knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.’