I see a lot of posts & comments where folks are complaining about having to interview with more than a few people for a new position at a company. It seems like these folks think just the future boss, and maybe one other person should be enough. Since interviews are hard, we should have less of them, seems the overall vibe.

Well, maybe, but in my experience it depends on how you look at it.

When I interviewed for my current role I met with each of 5 senior management folks & their teams, in groups ranging from 1 to 6 people, as well as the CEO , HR, and the guy who was hiring me (twice, actually). Yeah, it was a hella long day and I was pretty limp at the end.

While that might have been overkill, I realized something after I started the job. All those people I interviewed with were part of a round table to evaluate the candidates and were able to not only voice their views on me, but hear why the manager wanted to hire me.

Now some were rooting for me, and maybe some against me, but all had some level of ownership. As a result when I started and I was going to various departments to learn processes and gather info while building a data warehouse I ran into few obstacles. I have no doubt it was because I was someone they’d met and had their say on, instead of some stranger selected in secret by the Adminisphere.

So if you’re in your nth round of interviews for a job, try to take comfort in that if you get hired, you’ll be working with fewer strangers, and folks will be more invested in your success.