Being now unemployed I have started to pay attention again to the Want Ads and the like. Browsing the web, I read an odd web article recently that caught my attention about the most common ways to screw up in an interview.In a recent survey more than 150 companies answered the question, “Why don’t you hire an applicant who is capable of doing the job?”. The responses were:
1. Poor personal appearance
2. Lack of interest and enthusiasm
3. Over-emphasis on money
4. Condemnation of past employers
5. Failure to look at interviewer while conversing
6. Limp, fishy handshake
7. Unwillingness to go where sent
8. Lateness to interview
9. Failure to express appreciation for interviewer’s time
10. Asks no questions about the job
11. Indefinite response to questions
12. Overbearing, over-aggressive, conceited “know-it-all” complex
13. Inability to express oneself clearly
14. Lack of planning for career: no purpose or goals
15. Lack of confidence, uneasiness
16. Failure to participate in activities
17. Unwillingness to start at bottom
18. Excuses, evasiveness
19. Untruthfulness
20. Lack of manners, courtesy
21. Lack of maturity
22. Lack of vitality
23. Indecision
24. Merely shopping around
i have thoughts:
These observations are all one-sided. So much so, I wonder what would be the response to the Survey “What Are the Most Common Ways for Employers to Strike Out During Interviews”? Some responses would be much as those listed above. But there are a few others I can think of:
1. Surly receptionists
2. Dirty restrooms
3. Work culture that dissuades publication of papers and professional development
4. Only Lipton’s tea in the kitchen, or worse: no tea at all
5. Even worse – no kitchen
6. No offer to come back and have a casual walkabout to chat to staff
7. No follow up phone calls or emails
You go add your own….
It is rough to be unemployed nowadays. There are too many candidates chasing too few jobs. But the day will come when we, the Unemployed, will be the Sellers in a Sellers market. And when that day comes, the restrooms had better be clean, since a good indicator of an employer’s commitment to staff is the condition of the restrooms…
I have another thing to add to the first list: claiming a particular project as your own when in fact it was done by the company you are interviewing with!
My boss interviewed a guy who’s firm did some geotech work on a freeway traffic interchange. There were some pretty poor soils, so the firm hired us to design a ground improvement scheme as that design was a little over their heads. Later on in an informal interview, this guy talked about how he knew how to do ground improvement design and how he had designed it on this particular project. My boss reminded him that our firm did that work and he promptly and clumsily backpedaled. But it was clearly too late for him to have any chance with our firm!
Randy: Silly man, he. I should write my own little stories about the many many people who lost out on interviews with me over my career. And balance those with stories about the several who won my respect in interviews, despite several apparent impediments (apparent to others).