Accident Fund interview questions

Significant length of time between application and interview. Interview with hiring manager was straight forward and included a good breath of information about the company and the team the position works with.

Contacted 7/31 by local, highly regarded technical recruiting firm about opportunity with AF Group to write policy/procedure documentation. Had screening interview with recruiter, 8/5. Told that position reported into Information Security at AFG, and that the project was to document processes in order adopt very trendy security framework for handlers of personal health data. (Note: "adopt," not actually certify). Was told client was having a hard time placing and retaining resource there. Asked my hourly rate for a 6-month contract, replied $55-$60/hr. Response was that client would express "sticker shock." Sent work examples through recruiter to client. Had phone interview with hiring auth at AFG, 8/9. Went well. Had F2F interview at client site, 8/21, Interviewing panel consisted of hiring auth, a project mgr., and an info sec officer. All except latter had defensive expressions on their faces, as if they had just come from a previous meeting where they learned they had lost their funding. Interview was very stiff; rigid, haughty expressions never changed. Hiring auth described org and project. Passed around process documentation I wrote 15 years earlier - only examples of their type that I had. Attempted ice-breaker joke that "Agile came into being just to do away with documentation like this...." Info Sec officer was friendly and chuckled; others remained steely. Q&A period followed. Turns out they want to go to trouble of documenting processes for popular security framework, but not actually get certified for the framework, which would make the work of the Technical Writer (if not the whole project) utterly pointless. At the end of the interview, hiring authority barked "Walk him out" to the project mgr. and I left, really happy that I already had a different job offer in pocket. Recruiter called 8/24 to inform me that I was not selected. Reasons: a) my process documentation examples were too old b) my Polo shirt and Dockers khaki slacks were too casual; I should have been wearing a blazer, tie, dress slacks. Yet the hiring authority wore a casual short sleeve shirt to show off a sleeve of tattoos and sported a tangle of dreadlocks hanging off the back of his shaved head, on which he wore a cap. It was a strange experience that I'm glad to have had, just so I could write this.