On interview panel but getting no details until the interview

[IncessantNameChanger]

Is this normal? It's senior manager role. I have no idea what type of person we are looking for ( beyound the obvious for the role). Not seen the job description, the CV, application, nothing. I don't know what questions I'm going to ask. I therefore can't prepair.

Yes I have asked these questions and the reply is that I will get the pack on the day, just before the interview.

I'm not going to prepair beyound having my stock interview questions, so what would you do if x happened, what do you think about y, why do you think you be a good fit with company ethos.

So I guess I don't need to know. But at the same time I don't think this is ideal.

Thoughts?

What is your role in the business?

School governor. Recruiting SMT member. I'm not chairing, the HT will drive the interview and I have faith they know what they want ( also it's just one candidate so I think they already have the job) so maybe it's a forgone conclusion but they still have to convince me they are right for the job obviously.

In my experience, our interviews are very standard. We ask the exact same questions in the exact same order of everyone. So there’s no need to prepare. You just get the questions on the day. I assume we must have also received CVs but I can’t remember if it was just on the day as well or in advance. Usually your job is just to ask questions and then discuss at the end the relative quality of the interviews, so I expect not much preparation needed. I imagine they probably don’t share to much information in advance so that people don’t go off googling as that can create bias.

You are there to oversee the head then, put a tick in the ‘not corrupt’ box and move on. If there is only one candidate this is surely a formality.

When I’ve done interviews as a school governor, the questions are allocated beforehand, so everyone knows who will ask what. There’s a grid that you record your opinion of the responses, up to 5 and the numbers are added for each candidate.

If there’s only one candidate, there’s no reason why the grid shouldn’t still apply and if s/he doesn’t score well, no one is appointed. I would want to see the application form and referees prior to the interview though. A well written statement, pertaining to the requirements of the role would help me make a judgement, which might be confirmed or the opposite, in person.

I was on the HT panel and we had all the candidates papers to look at beforehand and could ask questions that fitted into school ethos. I will prepair a few questions but presume they will be pre scripted then.