When do you stop the interview? My short BP story.

Has it ever happened to you that you realize that the job you are being interviewed for is actually not a got fit? That's my today's experience. I applied for an HR Business Partner position with BP in their Shipping business and on paper it looked weighty and exciting. This is obviously a caveat everyone should be wary of - job ads do not equal job descriptions and both often do not equal reality. But I thought that it was an interesting opportunity. I had to do two psychometric tests online before the interview (really looking forward to see the results!), so everything was set for this morning's 9 am phone chat with the HR Manager.

She called me promptly on the dot (this is not Spain we are talking about) and after a brief and jovial introduction we jumped into discussions of the role. After a couple of minutes it became clear to me that the role was even smaller than what I used to do with Shell in South Africa. I looked after a much larger client portfolio, I did have the experience of looking after the Health & Safety and Maritime functions, and I had more organizational support people to manage and coordinate + all the exciting projects that regularly came my way. I asked a couple of questions more and politely told the recruiter that I was not interested in that particular role explaining why. She was very understanding and even recommended an agency to contact who is handling the lion's share of BP recruitment in the UK, so that they are aware of my candidacy.

Should I have gone though the entire interview just for the experience and maybe a chance that in the process I could have developed a stronger bond with the interviewer and hence she could have considered other opportunities for me, or was it the right thing not to spend our time on discussing something that was outright not suitable? Both options have their pros and cons... Tough choices...