I applied through a recruiter and was asked to attend an in person interview.
The interview included a range of experience based, technical, and delivery focused questions. One of the interviewers, the technical PM, was pleasant, professional, and demonstrated strong leadership qualities. She listened carefully, reflected on my answers, and asked thoughtful follow up questions.
However, my experience with the Head of Data was very different. Although the interview was requested to be in person, the Head of Data joined remotely via video link, which felt inconsistent and unprofessional given the candidate was expected to attend onsite.
The discussion also felt less like a senior level interview and more like a challenge session. The Head of Data appeared to approach the conversation from a very hands on data engineer mindset, rather than assessing broader senior engineering, leadership, stakeholder, architecture, and delivery capability. Some questions felt designed to prove the candidate wrong rather than understand experience, assess fit, or explore how the candidate thinks.
Another concern was that the Head of Data seemed more focused on what data governance, compliance, and data management practices exist within my current organisation, which is one of the largest public sector organisations in Australia, rather than focusing on what I could bring to FSG or what I could do differently in their environment. I was being grilled on the broader data management framework of my current employer, despite the fact that an organisation of that size has thousands of people and many governance functions outside my direct control.
For a senior role, I expected a more balanced and structured interview process, especially around leadership, ownership, stakeholder management, architecture, and team contribution. Instead, the process felt overly narrow and not well aligned to evaluating senior capability.
My advice to management would be to create a more consistent and respectful interview structure. If candidates are required to attend in person, panel members should ideally attend in person as well, or the process should be clearly positioned as hybrid. Interviewers should also be aligned on what the role actually requires and assess candidates against senior level expectations, not just detailed technical questioning or unrelated organisational governance topics from a candidate’s current employer.
A stronger focus on listening, reflection, role fit, leadership capability, and what the candidate can contribute to FSG would significantly improve the candidate experience.
