There are some spectacularly poor interviewers in the world. I once had one ask me, with all seriousness, what dinosaur I would be if I had a choice, and why. They had no idea why they were asking the question, it turned out later, but it was on a list of questions they'd gotten out of a "how to" help manual for interviewers. My assumption was that it was to see how quick on my feet I was and how well I could communicate. They later said they didn't know why it was on the list and had never heard of my dinosaur or what my answer "meant".
On the flip side, I have been the interviewer and found the process extremely draining. I was sometimes amazed with the responses to questions - some bordering on the incoherent (you ask a specific question and get a totally unrelated answer). And there was the one woman who asked as her first question who her supervisor would be - she said she would not work for a woman supervisor (filed in the "do not hire" batch immediately)... at least she was honest. And there was guy with the PhD who was applying as an entry level clerical at minimum wage - that raised so many flags: why would a PhD apply and gee, he's not going to stay here long and, also, how is he going to fit in with the high-school dropouts currently working in that area? (No other work available in that town and he had kids to feed was the actual answer, but sometimes you have to leave your educational credentials off your resume to be seriously considered. Been there, done that, so I passed his file to the hiring manager for his consideration - he promptly weeded the poor guy out. I'd have hired him - he would have showed up every day and done his job to feed those kids!)
So, yeah, interviewing. You go into a room in a completely artificial construct and it's stressful no matter which side of the desk you sit on.
Regardless of my running off at the keyboard here I actually don't tend to talk a lot and am normally very to-the-point. It's not a good trait to have in a "touchy-feely" employment environment, but a real asset in some job situations. (My aptitude tests say I'd make a great fire-watcher. Sounds like a lovely job!) Since so often you have to get through the chatty HR people before you get to meet the people who actually matter, sometimes you never actually have a chance at a job for which you are really very well suited. While I am hoping things run differently here, I am willing to guess that a lot is the same. Should I ever get to the stage here of having a face-to-face interview it's going to be an interesting experience in culture clash, I think. {insert anticipatory wince here}
