Post Analysis Interview

Elizabeth Wilby

English 202D


Interview with: Yankee Doodle

Prior knowledge: Went to Chest Wester University, majored in Communications, works with OReoS as a T. consultant in hiring for tech companies



I opened the interview asking him what a day in his normal schedule looks like.


Yankee often has the option to work in his office or at home unless he needs to be there for an interview or a meeting with other consultants and coworkers working with him or if he needs to give a comparison report to his bosses. He said he believes he communicates more with people if he works from home since he is constantly calling or getting calls as well as emailing someone about where he is within his work.


We talked about some typical issues he has with his work as well as why he prefers to deal with an issue than something easy. He’s a go-getter who likes his job and is genuinely good at communicating and connecting with the people around him


Some ideas we discussed had to do especially with my question about how he conducts and prepares for an interview. He first is given a lot of information about the client that hires his company to understand exactly what kind of person they are looking for within a job. He doesn’t solicit job information but is instead usually given a list of potentials to choose from. He creates questions based on the company’s profile. I asked him if there were any questions he would never ask a client he quickly stated that there wasn’t a specific blacklist for questions but that he stays away from asking anything too personal. While he likes to feel like he can develop a healthy work relationship with potentials, he also makes sure that there is a clear line drawn. He talked about an experience he had where he felt he knew too much personal information about a potential and almost felt obligated to hire him. He didn’t and luckily ended up going with a better candidate, but he said after that experience he’s learned how to better navigate on the spot during an interview.


Yankee talks ALOT and we’re friends so we took a few side roads but he was very good at being clear with his answers. He gave a lot of stories about his experiences to back up what he said which I thought was interesting and a great way of giving him credibility when it comes to the knowledge he has acquired from his experiences so far.


B. Something that worked really well was giving him a slight introduction to what we’ve been discussing and thinking about in class before the interview officially started. He was interested to understand how we were using the information and what we were developing to better understand how to use this kind of knowledge and apply it to a real life work situation. This drew him in and helped him really think about how to give a good answer that would be clear and also be able to teach me something about where he works.


I got an interesting answer to the question I had about asking interview questions as well as the question I had for him about the difference between communication from home versus at work and how different obstacles can create different situations depending on the location of his coworkers and himself.


Something I noticed before is that he really is dedicated to his job. We went to an eagles game a few weeks ago and the next day he decided to stay home and go out to breakfast. Even though this was before our interview I noted that he’s pretty much in constant communication with his work at every hour of the day Monday through Friday during work hours. He was sending emails, getting phone calls and being given new contact information. He had to push back an interview he had scheduled that day so was going over the man’s resume to learn as much as he could about his background so he wouldn’t need the paper to use as a reference during the actual interview.

- Another good question I asked was about how he conducts an actual interview. Initially the first interview he has in over the phone with many potential hires. He then continues to narrow down, sometimes giving two or three phone interviews to a potential depending on how long the contract is with the client and eventually after he narrows it down to a “handful” of applicants will conduct an in person interview. When narrowing down applicants he looks at work experience against the requirements for the job, and if they are older, when they graduated from college and if it was a while ago if there were gaps employment and if they have stayed up to date with any necessary program requirements for the job. He will contact prior employers usually if he’s really struggling to choose between potentials. He said he almost never looks at GPA because he doesn’t believe it’s a good indicator of intelligence or capability but that he recognizes that’s also just a personal preference.


C. A specific question that fell flat was when I asked if he could share any of the projects he’s been working on. Due to the privacy of some of the clients that hire his company he can’t really give information about who he’s working with or what his coworkers discuss in a meeting since it can also revolve around individual people


If I had known this prior to the interview I would have asked a better question that maybe involved a more theoretical situation that way it would give him something to respond to which was made up by me instead of asking him to give me specifics. It’s probably harder to navigate and make up a theoretical situation on his part without using actual information from the companies that hire him.


D. I learned that this job was a really good example of the importance of communication within the workplace. This job requires attention to detail as well as the ability to analyze and compare sometimes on the spot and sometimes through a thought out report. It utilizes a lot of mediums to get work done as a group such as emails, meetings, reports, interviews, as well as conducting and finding research to create profiles for clients as well as potentials. He communicates both internally and externally with clients and potentials being external to him.


E. I noticed him using a lot of metacognitive thinking with this job when it comes to preparing for interviews and reports. He puts a lot of thought and effort into preparing for them that way in the interview or report he can allow his brain to communicate through first level thinking and make it seem authentic. It’s impressive because I think it takes a special skill that is only acquired by practice to become good at this.