Friday, 8 June 2007

Interviews

Today we interviewed for the post of WCVS Finance and Administration Officer with the interview panel comprising myself, Ian Stageman (a WCVS trustee) and Vanessa (our Development and Training Officer). Last week, we agreed a table of ten or so standard questions, and we met this morning to finalise our scoring system. I arrived about 8:00 for final preparations of the exercises our candidates would tackle: write a plain English explanation of a bank reconciliation and complete a few examples of double entries.

Recruiting finance officers is fraught with difficulty. Under qualifications, someone’s application may simply say “1998 – AAT”. This could mean “paid £50 to register as a student”. Or it could mean: “completed a full-time two year course and passed all exams”. Buyer beware!

The first candidate arrived at 8:30, and by 12:30 we had finished the fourth and final interview. We quickly narrowed the field from four to three. Then from three to two. The final stage took slightly longer but soon we reached a consensus. The exercises helped a little – mostly for confirming our decisions.

Later, at home, I finally managed to contact the successful candidate. She was very pleased and eagerly accepted the appointment. Very gratifying.

Jackie and I spent the evening sharing a drink with our neighbours.