Initially, I received an interview invitation from one of their recruiters for a vacant director position in downtown Brooklyn, three months after having applied for a similar position in another of their many departments.
One week later, moments before the interview was set to begin, the host informed me that I was going to be interviewed for the Senior Manager position, that carried a completely different job description. Instead of a face-to-face conversation, as the interview was scheduled to be conducted, I faced a panel with four participants. Among them the new, previously hired director.
Reading from a script, the interviewers asked me behavioral questions of a quality I would have expected from a recruiter conducting an initial screening interview, but certainly not from a group of department heads. First, very little was said about the position itself. However, things went interestingly when I questioned the scientific validity of some of their favorite toys like Meyer Briggs Type Identification (MBTI), an alleged assessment of one's personality type, and other remnants of the ’80 popular pseudo-science like Kilman’s Conflict Solving Theory.
It turned out that that particular department managed to survive in a kind of parallel universe, ignoring pretty much everything we’ve learned the last forty years in the area of human development.
In a way, I was pleased to be able to introduce them to a statistical program for social science that they’d never heard of. While the host tried her very best to save face, unintentionally I ruined their day. Especially the HR person, who was fuming.
As customary, I followed up with a "Thank You" note and, as expected, I never heard from them again.