I was initially approached by a technical recruiter by phone and email after I had posted my resume on Monster. This was a short, fact-finding call, which took about 30 minutes. This was on a Thursday. Following this call, I was asked to interview directly with two managers of the company on the following day.
The interview took place on the campus of the company for which HCL was fulfilling a contract; the job was technical writing and editing of troubleshooting documents for an internal software and hardware support team. In addition to editing the content, I was told I would be converting source material from multiple formats to a consistent platform using SharePoint and Microsoft Word.
One of the interviewing managers was very thorough and professional. He was clearly knowledgeable about content management, and asked direct questions which helped to outline the current process, and his suggestions were focussed clearly enough that it provided me with guidelines to suggest improvements and possible streamlining methods. He seemed organized, efficient, clearly analytical; by his questions, he showed that he had listened to my previous responses and was building on that information to take the interview to the next level.
In contrast the other manager, will knowledgeable, seemed as if he was trying more to impress me with his own level of knowledge and background than to apply my answers to the job at hand. A few of his questions actually led the interview afield, and the first manager would step in to bring things back to focus.
The interview lasted about an hour. I was notified later that day that I had been accepted for the position, and was asked to return on the following Monday for orientation and a staff "meet-and-greet."