Speaking of interviews that stick with you, I have a million examples of how very small Pittsburgh can be. For one, there are legitimately six people I know who have applied for a position where I work, and I don't think any of them know I work there. (There are two more who do know I work there and who have applied, so SMALL WORLD, INDEED.)
But a better example of how small Pittsburgh can be happened a few years ago. We were hiring in my department and someone came through that was referred by the manager of another department. We'll call the manager Frank just for the sake of having a name. Frank happens to be the person one who is friends with my cousin's wife, so AHOY! SMALL UNIVERSE! But the pattern continues. The candidate was someone Frank had worked with previously and it was someone I know from the internet. Twitter, to be exact.
Like, OG Twitter.
So Frank was recommending this person, but my first thought was OH HELL NO. I blocked that jerk on Twitter ten years ago for being more arrogant than any one person should be. But maybe? In all my years of internetting, I've met many people who were either much more awesome in person than they seemed online or vice versa. Sometimes Twitter brings out the best, other times it brings out the worst, but it had been ten years, so maybe I was wrong?
Regardless, we brought the person in for the group interview process. I genuinely maintained an open mind, even hoping the candidate would be a good fit because that person was set to save me from drowning under mountains of work. Now, there's a few important details worth mentioning. I had actually met the candidate in the past. Several times. We became acquainted via the internet, but had overlapped with some in-person events. Multiple.
I should have been a familiar face.
And name. He easily could have recognized my name. Our in-person overlap was such that it would have been very possible.
Regardless, once we were in a room together talking about the open position, it was very clear that he had NO IDEA we had ever met. He wasn't particularly good during the interview, but whatever. I had already determined that I would go with what the other five people interviewing him thought. If they were all in, I'd be all in. There was no sense in being a jerk just because someone doesn't remember me, y'know?
But hahahahahalololz. Evvvvvverybody was a nope. My favorite nope was the nopest of them all. One of my peers asked, "How would your co-workers describe you?" The candidate, the one who I labeled as arrogant years ago, looked the interviewer in the eye and sternly replied, "They would say I"m Superman."
That's not exactly the humble sort of personality we set out to hire. So.
He didn't get the job. Clearly. And I didn't have to say a word in the debrief meeting, so extra win and such.
Pittsburgh is so small, yinz. So small.