Quality Control Interview Question

[D8O8C8T8O8R]

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I apologize if this has been asked in another thread, but I have searched thoroughly and have found nothing so here it goes:

During a recent interview, there was another person sitting in the room with me and the interviewer. I was told this person was to "ensure fairness and consistency," but I was curious if this was really the only reason? They were sitting behind me and pretty much staring at the back of my head and it made me feel fairly uncomfortable. Was this a ploy to see how I would handle it, was the person there to give a second opinion of my interview to the admissions committee, or was it really just to make sure the interviews were equal?

Thanks for any information. Also, if it helps, none of the other interviewees mentioned another person being in the interview room with them at any time.

 

[ThaliaNox]

Sounds a little weird. Explanations that come to mind are that either the person watching is "in training" to be an interviewer or that your actual interviewer was on some kind of probation due to a complaint in the past. Certainly not the norm. Sorry to hear you had something out of your control making you nervous. I doubt that purposely making you uncomfortable was in any way the goal of the second person.

 

[barcoderider]

I recently interviewed at a school where the admissions people told us that they wanted us all to have a relaxed interview, and that if any of our interviewers asked us stressful questions we should let the admissions office know. So I'm guessing the extra person was there more to ensure that the interviewer did a good job, and didn't care about you.

I have never heard of this before though.

 

[D8O8C8T8O8R]

Thanks for the info guys, I appreciate it. It really was a stressful interview in general - the whole time was spent trying to figure out if I lied at all on my application (asking specific hours I spent on activities, asking detailed questions about the function of the hospital units I volunteered in etc.), and it appeared that he was "playing a part," but it could also have been he just didn't like me.

Has anyone else heard about an extra "quality control" person sitting in on an interview merely to observe?