Every person has stories about odd interviews, and I have had my share too, including the dude who was supposed to report to me and showed up stoned out of his mind. Interviewing with these guys, though, was the doozyest of all doozy interviews. The job description for the position was fairly nebulous, but was interesting enough for me to apply. A few days later I received a phone call from a nice young woman with a choice of three very precise 30 minute time slots. We agreed on one of them. I was expecting a screening call with the hiring manager or a recruiter and an initial discussion of the role and my qualifications and interest. At the set time my phone rings, and there’s someone on a poor quality speakerphone. It is the hiring manager, and with her are four of her reports and the nice young woman I spoke with earlier. They go on to introduce themselves and the hiring manager asks who wants to go first. One of them does, and asks “What’s the difference between a manager and a leader?” I answer. The second asks “Do you prefer strategic planning or execution?”, I answer. The third: “How do you manage, for your direct reports, goals, results and work/life balance?” There was no context to any of the questions, nothing tying it to goals, strategy, customers, etc. I had to pry what little details they’d provide in followup questions, which only the hiring manager would respond to, and the others chime into when prompted. It sounded very strange and I could not think this was indicative of team health and management maturity. In any case, this role was not something I’d want to do, but these guys spent 3 work hours helping me find this out instead of ten minute of a recruiter’s time.