Incredible experience! First interviewer is with a recruiter. Here, they want to know about you and your basic background. They want to see you succeed and are willing to answer anything you're willing to ask. If they think you should continue, they set you pretty immediately with your second interview.
The second interview feels tough, it's a panel interview, My interview was with two other supervisors and a senior replay operator. Here, we talked a lot about me, my background in sports, my interests in television, and how I got to be where I am now. A lot of other people have said that this interview is really scary because of the feeling they had to "impress" three to four people, and honestly, I almost let that psych me out. However, approaching with the mindset of, "this is just a conversation with 4 like minded people that genuinely want to know about you (me)" will free you and really help you succeed in this step. Remember, television is monotony, a lot of decisions need to be made, and conversations need to be had with more than one person at once, but in that instance, you're not just talking to four people about 1 thing, you're talking to your producer about replays, package ideas, you're talking to your tape AP about what's happening in game, you're listening to your director for cues to play your machine, you're talking to your fellow replay operators about who's doing what, who has another look for your package. You're asking engineering, video, and audio for help on various issues and somewhere in all of that, you're focusing on your game at hand! This interview...is really easy when you look at it in that perspective! This really can be one great and pleasant "conversation" instead of a tense "grill session" if you open up and let it be that!
After the second interview, I was contacted back by the recruiter/HR personnel that they wished to continue onto the next round.
The third interview, (by the way, interviews 2, 3, and 4 were all on Zoom or Teams, interview 1 was a phone interview), was another panel with another 2 supervisors, and was a philosophy style interview. Here, they wanted to know my background knowledge on television, replay, and since my background in replay revolves around telestration, they wanted to know how I approach replay and packaging. Since I came from a non-traditional background of television, they were very interested on how I learned so many different things in TV which took us into things like team oriented attitudes, how I deal with difficult situations, how I communicate, how I work with my current teammates and various different crews on a nightly basis, and most importantly, my knowledge on sports! We also talked about in-depth things like, how to communicate with people, psychology and stress, really getting into the gritty inner workings of television philosophy. Like I said, this is an overall philosophical interview and if you love talking about reasoning and having the opportunity to expand on things, this is the setting, or at least it was for me.
My fourth interview was an assessment interview. Here, I was with one other senior lead RO and we talked a lot about replay philosophy and how I approach watching different sports. We talked about different looks, angles, how I believe those looks are best used, examples of things I'd love to try, and examples of people and replays that I've learned from in my time working in sports television.
After about two weeks, I received a phone call from HR with my offer!
Everyone was incredible to talk to and learn from even if I hadn't received an offer, it was absolutely a worthwhile experience!
