I went on an interview today for a job. It was a group interview. We had about 30 people in the room and we had to do things like, take five mintutes, talk to the person on our right, then get up and tell the group why that person would be a good fit for the company.
Then we saw a training film, took a test, then came back and broke into groups of five and did exercises in front of the entire group.
At the end, the interviewer says there are only three positions open and those chosen will receive an email tomorrow, and if we don’t we are not in the running and we should wait for a year to apply.
I just don’t get it. I guess it’s a way to eliminate undesireables in a hurry but never having been on one, I doubt I’ll hear anything tomorrow. I can understand the exercises and such but it seems like a lot of bother to go through to only hire 3 people.
Has anyone else been on group interviews and what do you think of them
There were five of us, and we were in a conference room with four or five interviewers. They would ask a question, and whoever had their answer figured out first would start talking, giving the rest of the people time to think of their answer.
Questions like:
What is your dream job?
Why are you a good fit for this company?
When did you overcome an obstacle? Etc.
Mostly standard questions, just everybody had to answer them in front of each other.
My father used to do them. He got frustrated because he’d ask them all if they had any ideas about how to guess the volume of his office, and no one could give him an answer.
I was once on a group interview, but we were all guaranteed to get hired. It was pretty much mindless drone work for little above minimum wage. The interviewer said that we were being hired for a new division of the company, and we were fortunate to be getting in on the ground floor of it. One applicant said “Oh good, no elevators or escalators. I like that!” The interviewer was speechless.
I was on one once - we were broken into two groups and given a “survival” scenario.
It worked for me because I am pretty outgoing, a little bossy and have military experience. I was offered the job. I think in that setting, you need to stand out, but not obnoxiously so…which I nearly was looking back on it.
I had one for the job I’m currently in. Myself, one other applicant and a stooge from the team holding the vacancy were given a number of group tasks to discuss and resolve in front of a panel of three interviewers, who watched, then asked us questions about our decisions.
The tasks were typical ethical dilemmas - you’re in charge of allocating 5 vacant family homes, but there are 10 families (each different in composition and background, fully described) applying - decide who should get the places… (the exercise is nothing to do with the answers to the question - it’s just designed to provoke interesting discussion and debate.
I got the job in part because I asked questions of the group - about assumptions we were making, and asked them to explain further, rather than just trying to say my bit.