The interview process consisted of one phone interview with HR from London, and 2 in person interviews at their office in Copenhagen. During the first call, we spoke mainly about the fact that are searching for a manager with people skills. HR mentioned that they are looking for a manager to re-establish good practices as they have a team that kind of lost direction. The first person that interviewed me in person was very nervous and was shaking. We talked both about my experience as a people manager, but also about my skills. During this interview I found out that they don't actually know what team they are searching a manager for and they also don't know when would be the starting date. It was briefly explained that they are in a transition period where a lot of people are being moved around functions and departments and they also expect to acquire new clients, so they don't have an overview on what's next. This for me was already a red flag, but I kept it at the back of my mind and focused on understanding the process better. This interviewer was great, she had a sense of empathy, but I couldn't help not noticing how stressed she was (burnout?). We agreed that my experience aligns with the job requirements so I was called for the final interview.
Here 2 women from top management interviewed me. One of them bragged for the first 15 min about how hard it is to be a mom of two and to drop the kids off every morning. Then she went on explaining how she previously worked for the company, then she left, and last year the VP called to bring her back to "change everything around here". We talked about people skills. And different scenarios that could occur when being a manager. They focused on asking me how I feel about firing people. All the three times they asked this, I answered professionally emphasizing that this is sometimes part of the job and if there is probable cause I will of course do it. I went on to talk about the importance of knowing how to approach people and make sure they feel safe and motivated at work. Every time I was approaching a subject related to the well being of the team they would shift and ask how I feel about firing and moving people around. It was clear for me by this point that they were looking for someone to start mass firing as soon as they would take the role. I emphasized that I am willing to to do what's best for the company and the results, but I will always do all this having in mind the well being of my team. At some point they shifted the subject towards my skills. I could definitely feel that they were getting bored when I was talking about the psychological effects of certain actions within different teams. At this point, putting together the information about them going through a transformative phase combined with the way they insisted asking me about letting people go or send them to other departments, I already knew that this is not at all about people skills as mentioned during the first call and in the job posting. Or maybe we have different definitions about people skills. I only had 3 minutes left to ask questions and while I found this extremely unprofessional, I did ask again simple questions like what team will I be assigned to (how big the team and what client), when will I start, at what level is the management aligned with the practices that we want to impose to our teams. They did not know how to answer any of these questions. This low level of professionalism and they were offering 40k/month without pension (LOL).
so, expect mass layoffs soon if you work there and if you are interviewing for this position, know that it has in fact very little to do with what they advertise in the job posting and a lot to do with them looking for someone to be their puppet.
Very basic questions like what are your weaknesses, what would you have done differently in the past as a manager, how did you approach difficult employees, etc. If you previously managed teams, there won't be a question you won't know how to answer.
