He nodded. The nodding-along kind.
We moved to questions about operations. He described a scenario involving a multi-carrier exception on a time-sensitive retail account and asked how I’d approach it. I walked through it: first call to the carrier for specifics, simultaneous notification to the client with an estimated resolution window, protocol check for the account’s specific requirements, escalation path if the substitution couldn’t be arranged within the window.
He said: “Most people start with the paperwork.”
I said the paperwork is where you document what happened. The client call is where you keep the relationship.
He asked about building documentation for a team that doesn’t have it yet.
I said: start with the exceptions. Document not just what happened but why each decision was made, because the “why” is where the judgment lives. The log becomes a training tool because new coordinators can read through it and understand the decision-making that more experienced people have internalized.
He said: “You’ve built something like that before.”
I said I’d built one from scratch and maintained it for fifteen years.
He said he’d be in touch.
The panel interview was two weeks later. Two of Owen’s colleagues: one operations, one client relations. The case exercise was a mock exception scenario with a fictional client portfolio. They gave me a carrier conflict, a client deadline, and an ambiguous rate approval.
I worked through it in twenty-two minutes. I documented my decisions and flagged two issues in the mock portfolio that weren’t part of the original scenario but would have created problems within the quarter.