The interview initially went well. Then I scheduled for a panel interview. The interviewer made the panel interview seem difficult (to say the least). These panelist apparently had ultimate hiring authority yet I would only interview with them by phone once. No notice was made of whether they'd seen samples I had submitted or not. Due to technical issues with my calendar I missed the interview, however, as soon as I noticed a reminder from the company I sent back a response explaining my difficulty and asking to reschedule. After about 18 hours they responded that the panel wasn't interested. I certainly wasn't astounded since I had missed the interview time (by about 30 minutes) and the interviewer seemed to need to ask the interview panel whether they would be interested. My first thought was - yes - I made a huge mistake - not very impressive but then I started to think - really - do I want to work with people who themselves might miss an appointment for one reason or the other. Over the years I've been on the other side of the table - as an interviewer - and I've had to tolerate some pretty bad behavior on the part of candidates. Never once did I hold not making an interview against someone if they followed up right away and were at least polite. It makes me wonder whether or not they might be impossible as colleagues and whether or not that's the behavior one can expect with the employer.
