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Interviewing and personalities
It's great to try to get a sense of a person's personality in an interview, but sometimes first impressions can be far off the mark. I once interviewed at a small firm, and one partner (of two--I would primarily be working with the other, alpha, one) I interviewed with seemed laid-back, not totally into working at all (ie., "if you have to work, law's okay, and it pays better than engineering"). He'd also done some community musical theater, and we had that in common. Right.
Okay, so cut to actual working conditions. The guy was invariably first in, last out. I don't think he was consciously trying to undermine me, but lots of things he did had that effect--didn't let the secretaries do my work, took calls from my clients when I wasn't in yet, etc. And he couldn't deal with the restaurant where we had our firm Christmas dinner one year (one of the nicest in town) because the food was too "weird." Evidently he would have preferred TGIFriday's.
A 20-minute interview will give you some idea, but no way it can tell you the whole story.
tm
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