Team Interview

[gopal venu]

Hi Guys,

I am new to this round of Interview called "Team Interview".

I am from USA and applied for the contract position i did well in written test,tech interview,hiring manager interview and they asked me to come to Client's place and
meet team members.

If team member like me then they will move forward.

Can anyone has experience with this "Team Interview" ?

I want to know :-
1. The Process ( how it "normally" conducted ? also every member of team will be part of this ??)
2. The core intent and expectation
3. The weight of this interview in overall selection process

Thanks in advance..

[arulk pillai]

2. The core intent and expectation --> To ascertain, how well you fit in with the team
3. The weight of this interview in overall selection process --> I would imagine this would be more of a formality, unless something really go wrong.

[Campbell Ritchie]

These things change, and come into and out of fashion. They were very fashionable in the NHS about 20-25 years ago, and informally called "ordeal by sherry". The senior staff would all meet after hours and the candidates would have to circulate and talk to as many as possible, while drinking tiny glasses of wine, etc. They were significant; I always phoned Personnel the morning after and told them I preferred candidate A over B and didn't like C.
Then, 10-15 years ago, ordeal by sherry had gone out of fashion, to be replaced by what I call "ordeal by acetate". You had to present a presentation (on an overhead projector; it was just before PowerPoint became popular) for 15-20 minutes on some subject given a week in advance.

[Henry Wong]

Is there actually a definition for "team interview"? The last few "team interviews" that I went to were "guantlet" type interviews -- back to back interviews with the whole team. It certainly can get "bad" (as it takes one bad interview to ruin the rest of the day).

However, IMO, this should be the time for you to do the interviewing too. Find out the work environment, the people, etc. The answers that you get will also be of higher quality, as you can ask multiple team members to confirm details.

Henry

[arulk pillai]

Henry Wong wrote:
Is there actually a definition for "team interview"? The last few "team interviews" that I went to were "guantlet" type interviews -- back to back interviews with the whole team. It certainly can get "bad" (as it takes one bad interview to ruin the rest of the day).

However, IMO, this should be the time for you to do the interviewing too. Find out the work environment, the people, etc. The answers that you get will also be of higher quality, as you can ask multiple team members to confirm details.

Henry

Very true. It is a two way process. In a tougher market, one may have to settle for the second best.

[David Hawkins]

From my perspective I at least want my leads to interview. What I prefer to do is have a brief sit down discussion with the prospect, get to know them and what they like to do. I want to know what they worked on, how they did it, and get an idea of how passionate they are about their work and how well they might fit in with the team. I try to keep this brief, I can generally get what I need in 15 minutes.

After that I sit them down with a panel of about three people. Ideally this will be my team leads, but the mix could vary depending on availability. I typically don't sit in unless they need a third. The three employees have a range of questions they ask and this part could take between 30 minutes to an hour depending on how the questions go. A fast interview is typically not a good sign. Then we whisk away the prospect to my boss for a brief informal sitdown while I discuss how the interview went with my team. From them I am looking for technical proficiency plus their overall impression.

I have found this is less time intensive than the "gauntlet" style interviews where they meet various people. I'm certainly not going to have them meet everyone on my team (which has varied between 10 and 15 people) for a sitdown interview.