Interview criteria

I'd just returned to my desk this morning when a programme colleague asked whether I could do him a favour and help him interview candidates for a job on the programme. I've had a bit of experience in interviewing people, have little difficulty in holding down a decent conversation, and given a CV, a job description, and access to the customer's HR policy, and with a bit of preparation time I'd have no difficulties. I replied in the affirmative. He said, "Good, because the first one is arriving in five minutes and the guy who was supposed to be leading the interviews is off sick."

"Oh... OK. Do you have a CV for this person? What's the role? Are there Terms of Reference? Guidance for interviewers?" Me and my big mouth. I have five minutes to prep for the interview so I don't look like an idiot. Great. At least there are Terms of Reference, so I have some criteria to interview against.

The interviewee arrives. She's five minutes late, by which time I've read the CV, read the terms of reference, and cobbled together a few questions to ask. It's time to don a jacket, a smile, the better of my two accents, and waltz along to the interview room.

We get through the introductions and onto the interview proper. There is no warm-up. My colleague launches into competency questions, ticking off answers against his criteria. As reserve interviewer, I don't feel too obliged to ask many questions. I make a few notes, pick up on a few things the interviewee has mentioned, and, given an opportunity, ask her to talk me through her CV. She talks well. In sentences. Which have capital letters, full stops, and which I suspect she has run a spellcheck on before enunciating. The interview being for an administrative and programme office role, these are all very good signs. I find out more about her through this approach than from her responses to my colleague's more direct "Have you got any experience of taking minutes?" approach, most of which could be answered with brief recourse to the candidate's CV. My usual approach is to give an interviewee sufficient rope for a multitude of purposes and see whether they choose to hang themselves or not. I tend to like the types who examine the rope for a few moments and return it with some questions of their own.

A few more "How would you go about organising a meeting?" questions later, my colleague's parting prod of "What do you understand by Equal Opportunities and Diversity?" was a little off-beat and surprizing. I shouldn't have been surprized. This organisation takes its obligations to equal opportunities and diversity seriously. For example, last week, the programme team was congratulated on its gender mix but criticised for its performance in "the racial dimension". What precisely is the programme supposed to do about this? Should I volunteer to change race? From White, British to White, Other, or perhaps to Does not wish not disclose?

I suspect there's little the programme can do, beyond ensuring that any White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) recruited to the programme in future can provide a decent answer to the question "What do you understand by Equal Opportunities and Diversity?" I don't know what a model answer sounds like, but I hope it was what this lass gave. She sounded like she could do the job, had a good attitude and would get on well with the team. I suspect she'll be offered the job. It's just a pity that, as a non-WASP and given the recent criticism, many people will automatically assume she's been recruited to improve our racial dimension.