Working Wounded Blog: Weeding Out Interview Pretenders
March 23, 2005 — -- According to a survey of hiring managers by Development Dimensions International, 44 percent reported that they were surprised that workers were different on the job than in an interview. Duh!
This intrepid blogger decided to dig deeper; to explore this disparity from both the point of the view of the hiring manager and from the job seeker to find out why they seem to exist on separate planets. Maybe Rodney King was wrong -- maybe we all can just get along.
HIRING MANAGERS: Reading the latest literature (if you can call business books and magazines the "L" word) about how to conduct an interview, the interviewing game seems to be following the path of playing more "sophisticated" games with the interviewee … often at the price of relevance. Take the ever-popular brain teaser questions (please!): For example, "How many quarter coins do Yankee fans have in their pockets during a sold-out baseball game?" (My response: I thought New Yorkers in general wouldn't be caught dead with anything smaller than a 10-dollar bill.) Who cares about this stuff, and how does it predict job performance?
If this is really the criteria that more and more organizations are using to hire talent, we're getting to a point where the brainteaser expert "Jeopardy" millionaire is going to get every job. But every person I've ever met who is a whiz at quiz shows isn't necessarily at his or her best when it comes to dealing with human beings. And the last time I checked, most organizations are still full of 'em … buman beings, that is …
Maybe the reason that 44 percent of hiring managers said they were surprised at how the person changed when they were in the job is because the art of interviewing has become too technical -- all fluff and no substance. More and more effort in an interview is focused on less and less of who the person actually is and what they've accomplished.
JOB SEEKERS: According to my e-mail, given all of the layoffs and turbulence in the job market today, job seekers are increasingly defensive about the gaps in their resumes -- the layoff that they don't know how to explain or bosses who they are sure are giving them terrible references. Rather than accepting that the odds are pretty good that the person interviewing them has either experienced one of these things or knows someone who has, they look to hide these things. And with all the interviewing self-help books out there, they've become experts at covering up their own perceived shortcomings.
Sure, it's always been true that job seekers aren't always as focused on telling the employer who they really are, but rather who they think the employer wants to see. But workers today are becoming as adept at spin as the average political candidate.
So with interviewers focusing more and more on the clever questions and job seekers spinning and spinning, is it any wonder that there are more and more surprises at work? Get out your soapbox and tell me what you think about this topic below.
QUOTE: "An important obstacle is the supposition that improvement in quality and productivity is accomplished suddenly by affirmation of faith." W. Edwards Deming
WEEKLY BOOK EXCERPT: "1001 Ways to Reward Employees" by Bob Nelson (Workman, 1994):
"Results of a recent survey by the Council of Communications Management confirm what almost every employee already knows: that recognition for a job well done is the top motivator of employee performance. Yet most managers do not understand or use the potential power of recognition and rewards. This is true even though 33 percent of managers themselves report that they would rather work in an organization where they receive better recognition."
WORKING WOUNDED MAILBAG: This has to qualify as one thing you never want to hear in an interview: "She's here Bill, could you sniff her?" The explanation is that one of the workers had an allergy to perfume. But rather than just asking the applicant if she wore perfume, Bill had to do a sniff test of her.
Bob Rosner is a best-selling author, an internationally syndicated columnist, popular speaker and a recent addition to the community of bloggers. He welcomes your comments. bob@workingwounded.com
This work is the opinion of the columnist and in no way reflects the opinion of ABC News.
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