Tales from the Interview Trenches - the Unexpected, the Offbeat and the Bizarre

Domain & Consulting business at Wipro's Consumer BU (which I run) has been growing at a good clip, hence the last few months have seen a frenzy of interviews for leadership positions across our 4 verticals - Retail, CPG, Travel and Media. But wait... this piece is not a Buzzfeed worthy "10 ways to..." kind of click-bait list headline on interviewing techniques or desirable traits in perfect candidates. That said, when you interview so many folks, looking desperately for that mix of so many diverse attributes from content orientation to executive presence, you invariably make some unplanned detours to Bizarre Street. Senior level interviews and bizarre, you say? You bet. Read on.

V is a senior industry leader who came with a great mix of tech skills, entrepreneurship track record and supply chain practice building smarts spanning decades. After the telephonic rounds, our HR head M along with me were in a videoconference room in Bangalore and V was in a Wipro office in a different city. V was sitting close to the screen of the longish room, right on the first chair. Initial ice breaking questions and camaraderie over, we were getting into the swing of things from how he built teams to what are CPG companies looking at in the digital age when... his conference room door at the far end dramatically (and very slowly) creaked open like in one of those old Hitchcock movies. V looked behind, took this to be a planned intervention, pretended everything is ok, kept his cool and continued answering. M & I looked at each other, eyebrows raised and completely clueless. On our Vcon screens, we saw a tallish man wearing thick glasses, looking quite disoriented, staring blankly at nothing in particular, who gently glided (he was surely not walking) straight from the door to the nearby shorter end of the rectangular room. And then just like that, like a scene from a 3rd rate paranormal movie, he just vanished from our screen. V continued speaking, not even looking at his direction. At our end, we simply had to intervene, so M made the first move "Hey, hello, could you come on the screen please". The ghost must have glided to the front of the room (we still couldn't see him) and slowly, came to a halt close to the Vcon camera. Suddenly, all we could see on our screens was a giant belt buckle plus 6 inches above & below of his silhouette. It was not a particularly pleasant sight, so M intervened again, "Can you please move away from the screen?". The ghost glided off and promptly sat right next to V, inches away. V continued speaking, assuming that this must be some kind of a stress interview tactic, but reflexively lifted his elbow towards the spirit, bracing for a potential attack that could happen anytime. M asked "May we know who you are?". Pat came the reply, "Executive". "Of what?", M was mustering the last remnants of his patience. Without waiting for an answer, M continued, "Could you please remove yourself from here?". No response. Mr. Executive Ghost stayed put. M tried another track "Can you please excuse us?". No response. I gently told M "I think a more direct speech might work, let's not imply anything!" The HR manager in our room who was so far staring with his mouth open, rose to the occasion and shouted, "Please go OUT of the room NOW". Mr. Exec got up, looked around in all directions as vacuously as before and said "OK, I will go". He then glided out, thus completing the perambulation of the entire room. And just like that, he was gone. Unplanned cameo over, I had to bring things back on track, so I jumped in, "V, I want to assure you that this is not something that happens on a daily basis in our company". V took it well and the interview continued. Who was the Phantom? Why was he was there in the first place? Was he a real human being or a ghost of someone who died there brokenhearted from lost love three decades back (his dressing was fairly retro)? I guess some things we'll never know.

My second story happened on a dark and rainy night in my car porch with K. I had to do a Skype round (face-to-face was needed, said HR), but the power was off at home, like it happens whenever it rains out here in Bangalore. My better half wanted to save the inverter's life through the night, so told me in no uncertain terms that "you can sit outside if you want, but I'm going to turn the porch light off". So, there I was in pitch darkness, with the only light coming from a seemingly extra bright smartphone screen dialing out K. The call connected and my screen was awash with a brilliant hue of light orange, which once my eyes got used to, I realized was the curtains on the other side. The screen shifted to show the walls, which were almost of the same color, a richer version of sunflower yellow. As my eyes started watering from the blackness all around and the brilliance of orange all over my screen, K emerged from the fire (as a matter of saying), wearing, what else, a saffron colored shirt. K's pale skin glowed in the fiery color all around as my eyes watered some more. I was transported. I was in a holy Hindu mutt (monastery) in the Himalayas, bang in the middle of a profoundly transformative experience. Is this a vision? Are these tears of ecstasy? I didn't have to wait much, the holy man brought me back to earth from my seance with a "Gopi, thanks for taking the interview so late in the night". I came out of my trance and wiping away my tears, hastily told him, K, I've seen you, I think we should continue over phone and quickly disconnected, feet back on the ground again. I recalled high school biology of rods and cones as I shifted from staring at the sun on my smartphone to staring at the tiny crescent moon in the sky.

S told me that he'll be ready for an interview at 4pm, so I video-called him on skype. After an initial bout of camera shaking on the other side during which I kept shaking my head like a cat in the middle staring at two people playing ball, I requested S to give a quick 8-10 minute intro about his experience so far. S told me that he's in office and he'll find some place where he can talk freely. That's the moment when the Go-proing of the interview began. S went into a conference room, was promptly ejected by someone who had booked it, went to the cafeteria only to see some coffee drinkers barging in, then said, he's taking the stairs to go down the building. At this point, I sort of lost focus on what he was saying, since my brain promptly shifted its attention to where he will be going to next. Through the dimly lit steps, S walked down a couple of flight of stairs all the time holding the phone in his hands and giving a long list of things he did early in his career. Suddenly, it was bright daylight and we (yes, I was living it too) were on the busy streets of central Bangalore. S continued with his intro and crossed the road, seemingly oblivious of blaring horns of cars, rickshaws dancing around him and the angry two-wheelers he dramatically stopped via a stop sign with his other hand, all the time staring at the screen and talking to me. If he gets run over and police checks what he was doing last, will I be booked for culpable homicide? I wondered. Thinking about my kids who'd be orphaned, I told him to stop talking and stand somewhere before he continues. "I am ok" came the reply as he merrily went to a seedy bylane where I could see a lot of drain pipes on the buildings (must have been the ugly rear end of some apartments). He then quickly entered a walled compound and started walking up the stairs of an under construction building. At this time, I had completely become riveted to the spectacle unfolding in front of my eyes. Workers were walking up along his side carrying freshly mixed cement giving him odd looks. He continued walking up. The walls had no plaster and the freshly cast stairs had no parapet walls. Is he planning to jump from the top of the building? Oh gosh, my orphan kids again. S, please stop. Right. Now. I don't need to do a Skype interview with you. We can talk over phone. I am cutting this call right now. I was getting increasingly frantic. No, its quite ok, said S, this is under construction, no one is there, we can have the interview here - as if he was inviting me to a secret private den to do something illicit - where we'll smoke weed, get high and listen to Pink Floyd, far away from the eyes of pesky local police. I had to act. I promptly cut the call. He dialed me back on Skype and I cut that too. Then I called him back over the phone, strictly audio only, caught my breath, remembered Sting's old hit from my school days (Be Still My Beating Heart, if you want to know) and told him, "can we start over"?

Postscript: While V and K joined us, S accepted our offer, gave a joining date, postponed it saying he's taking a family vacation, suddenly went cold and finally gave us the slip. I wasn't sure whether to be sad or relieved. But those 20 minutes on Skype video would surely remain etched in my consciousness for a long, long time.