Instructional Design Interview Nightmares

 

 

Photo by Jose Losada on Unsplash

I was walked to a windowed room that had a view out to the gently rolling green treed slopes of the campus. The ivy on the brick buildings was dying down in the November chill. Three panelists sat opposite me, with their backs to the view and the interview began.

I was interviewing for an educational technologist-type position at an Ivy League university. Even though I had a relative that worked there, our last names were different and I had done the application and interview prep entirely on my own. I didn't want to get this position through any nepotism.

As per usual in the course of human events, you can prepare for one set of circumstances (standing on my own, separate from my relative in the hiring process) and then you experience another set of circumstances.

Sidebar: I remember when I took care of a cohort of student teachers-to-be and one of them was in Tennessee (READ BIBLE BELT) and was a youth pastor becoming a Biology teacher. He shared with our cohort group that he was frightened about teaching evolution to kids that he was simultaneously counseling as a youth pastor. Then the first day of student teaching arrived.

It went OK, according to the student teacher.

But it was what happened at the end of the day that threw him.

The football coach came to his classroom after all the kids had left. The coach put his arm around the student teacher and said to him that he 'would pass every one of the football players in his classes'.

We all sat stunned for a moment and then started sputtering "That's not right!" and "He can't do that!" and "That's intimidation!"

The student teacher immediately reported the conversation to HIS teacher lead and we were informed that the situation was "taken care of."

Whew. We laughed. We prepared for an evolution-creation debate and instead received football intimidation. See the detail of Tennessee meant something.

It's classic that a teacher prepares for a big lesson. And then something breaks.

Surviving events like this is what makes you a good teacher. Experience. Not lessons.

I was introduced to the three person panel. There was the hiring manager, a faculty member, and a fellow technologist. The first round of questions went by.

Then the second round began. The faculty member asked me "Which do you think is better, face-to-face or online education?"

Basically, this blog post stops here because mentally at that moment, I screamed, jumped out of my chair, and RAN out of that building.

But that was only in my mind.
 

Physically, the faculty member had been touching a piece of paper that I assume was my resume. 

I answered that it really depended-- some information lends itself to face-to-face and some to online.

But I knew that if I had any chances for the job before this point, that I was like a burning ship sinking into the sea. I was a stooge, there to make the real -- and likely internal-- candidate's hire look legit. I wasn't going to get the job because they saw me as an online-only person. (Flash forward another year: they were right, but hey, I did need that job! I was sincerely interviewing. Grr...on events where people judge from the outside.)

I finished the interview and I didn't get the job.

I've long fantasized after that interview about stopping it right at that question-- before answering it-- and saying to the hiring manager:

"Are you going to let that question stand? 

Are you asking this same question from every candidate?  I find that that question does not seem consistent with the parameters of the job. Said another way, that question appears to be specifically written FOR ME and would not be a question you would asking of every candidate. Therefore, the question is illegal and everyone here on this panel should have completed interview training before being allowed to sit in on an interview.

If this institution is OK with those behaviors, I find that I would not want to work here and this interview is done. Thank you for your time. I'll find my way out."

Later on a couple more things happened:

1. When the pandemic struck, someone from that university reached out and said "Not hiring you for that job was a mistake" and then they tried to sweet talk me into working for them as an Independent Contractor, helping all of their faculty emergency transition to online learning. Because of THIS interview question, I turned down what was a $60,000 contract. Why? Because they were never going to transition to online. All of my work would have been the equivalent of spitting into the wind. With their ivy-covered walls, they were going to be face-to-face 'until the cows come home' as in, never. They will close as a university before they will COMMIT to teaching online.

2. I got into a HOT conversation on an Instructional Design Facebook Group on the legality of posing inconsistent questions to interviewees. I insisted that it is illegal. A couple of HMs insisted it is not (and thus, cherry picking questions up off an applicant's resume is perfectly fine).  It was a hot fight, yos.  It ended in a draw, that's all I can determine.  But I can say that I was trained on how to administer interviews and gave over 150 in my time as a Department Head.  Given that hiring IS a time when an entity is open to lawsuits, I just would NOT mess with doing something illegal at that point.

I feel for all the instructional designers that have sat in similarly perplexing and sad interviews. They are like a nightmare.  However, just like a nightmare, you can wake up, learn the lesson, and walk away changed. It's OK. Put not your trust in a job.