Help with a possible interview problem?

[LadyFlumpalot]

Ok, being quite vague deliberately...

I've been offered an interview for local council position.

Just found out that a member of the interview panel is related to a person I worked with at a previous job who I had a couple of personal issues with.

It's going to be obvious we know each other to that interviewer, can they ask their relative about me? I'm concerned as I know the relative will badmouth me.

Can they do this? Might this affect me getting offered the role?

I was in a similar position, the interviewer was the BIL of my DHs friend. In my situation there were no 'issues' with the friend (so I didn't have your concerns) but I know 100% that the interviewer spoke to the friend about me before I was offered the job. Of course, he shouldn't have done that, and I didn't find out until much later, but I know for a fact that he did.

In your situation I would expect the same will happen unfortunately. People are rarely as professional as we would like them to be.

Arse, that's what I was afraid of.

The issues we had weren't major - nothing was ever raised to the company and it wasn't in any way a contributing factor to my leaving. It was just that he didn't like me. He didn't really like anyone, and was always very quick to go to management about any small issue that he could about everyone.

I also know that his relative discusses interviews with him as he told me about a few.

I'm scuppered really, aren't I?

Well, if he doesn't like anyone and talks to this relative about work in general, then it might be that the relative will take anything he says with a pinch of salt. There isn't much you can do about it though, so focus on doing a great interview and keep your fingers crossed.

This type of 'it's not what you know, it's who you know' thing seems to happen a lot in councils though. I work for one and the job I applied for where the same thing happened was also at a council.

Just because they are related it doesnt necessarily mean that they have a good relationship or trust each others professional opinion. Do you like and respect the professional opinion of everyone youre related to? I certainly dont! They might not even have made the connection.

Also if you dazzle the rest of the panel they might overrule him.

Redexpat - it's his dad and they definitely will make the connection as he (ex colleague) has been there for 8 years and did the other half of my job in a tiny office of 6 (if that makes sense).

Ugh. It just adds an extra layer of stress onto the interview situation.

Can you put some positive comments forward about how well you work with other people even when relationships are difficult (for example the dynamics of working In a small team) and "push" your professionalism on this point?

Or face it up front when introduced? Hey I understand you are x's dad and say something nice about x. I worked with him on x and we got great results etc or something probably equally gracious and untrue

They might not talk, his dad might not ask his opinion, depends on how close they are. Just go and do the best interview you can.

I was thinking about that, Marcia. I was going to go with "oh good morning, are you related to X? Oh! I haven't seen him for a while? How is he? We used to work together at x, worked together on a few projects." Or something like that.

Surely if he's aware if this he should declare it to the interview panel?

Anyway, thanks for the advice all - nobody can tell me if the interviewer will talk to his son or not, and likely I'll never know if he does. I'll just have to give as good an interview as I can and hope for the best.