Realizing (during the final interview) that you don’t want the job – featuring Kevan Lee
“In my head, I was struggling to decide if it was worth saving the convo, or if I should just end the interview”
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“I was 30-min into the final interview round when I felt the room turn.”
This is how Kevan Lee – co-founder of Bonfire, and former marketing leader at Oyster and Buffer – described the moment. He was interviewing with the senior leadership team at Postscript (where I used to work).
“I thought everything was going really well, but I was suddenly in scramble mode.”
“At some point in our conversation, it became really important for me to demonstrate I could be someone who would pound the table when I wanted something to happen” he shared.
They were asking for specific examples of times Kevan had refused to accept no for an answer, in order to get his points or ideas across in a meeting.
The problem is that Kevan’s leadership style isn’t combative or argumentative. “I am oftentimes a quiet voice in the room, and that's intentional,” Kevan said. “I like to create space for others to talk, and prefer to work asynchronously on things rather than hash them out in the moment.”
Kevan tried to dance in the moment - to think of good examples. But after hearing the question, he realized the company culture wasn’t going to be the right fit for him.
It was tough to process this in real time … in the middle of a conversation with the senior leadership team of a well-known company that he wanted to work at. Kevan was pretty sure the interviewers could read every emotion on his face, but he still tried to stay cool and collected in the moment.
“In my head, I was struggling to decide if it was worth saving the conversation, or if I should just end the interview” he shared.
(As a side note - I worked at Postscript and interviewed Kevan in an earlier round - which made this story even crazier for me to hear for the first time on the podcast!)
In our chat, Kevan elaborates on that story and shares plenty more speed-bumps on his career journey, including:
How muddling through the case interview process at Oyster gave him the worst case of imposter syndrome ever.
The day he knocked on Buffer’s door again, after an initial rejection.
The two times big projects he was heading up turned out to be a total waste of time, money, and resources when someone else pulled the plug.
Watch or listen below 👇
Things to listen for:
[04:53] Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, but never identifying as an entrepreneur
[11:22] His “welcome to the league” moment
[14:05] Choosing to knock on Buffer’s door again after rejection
[17:18] Having to pull the plug on a large project
[25:20] Moving past a huge career disappointment
[29:30] Being told he need to “speak up more” in a meeting
[37:27] The worst type of interview Kevan has experienced
Resources:
Connect with Kevan on LinkedIn
Check out Bonfire
Connect with Andrew on LinkedIn
Learn more about Navattic
Learn more about Appcues
Interested in sponsoring the pod? Let’s chat! sponsor@deliveringvalue.co
Big fan of Kevan, looking forward to listening to this one!