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? Don't get what you mean. Can you clarify what being "thorough enough to get through a ten minute interview" means?
And again: some people are better at interviewing than others. You could be as slick as oil in an interview and suck at the job, or the other way around. I appreciate that it's an inexact science to say the least, but to me that's all the more reason to stay flexible and open-minded about it all.
It is hard to find good help. Even if people go through the entire dog and pony show and managed to get hired they could still end up being worthless. So if they cant even be thorough enough to get through a ten minute interview than GOOD BYE.
I agree totally. If a potential hire can't even get through the interview without being bored to distraction, then they are not going to make a good employee. If you're not interested in the history of the company, how can you expect them to think you will be interested in the working hard for them?
Besides, why would you NOT want to hear about the history and culture of the company that's interviewing you? After all, your decision to work there is just as important as their decision to hire you, right? Isn't the quality and history of the company important when YOU decide to work for them? It amazes me that some people manage to ever get hired at all.
[quote=joey2000;14380994]? Don't get what you mean. Can you clarify what being "thorough enough to get through a ten minute interview" means?
And again: some people are better at interviewing than others. You could be as slick as oil in an interview and suck at the job, or the other way around. I appreciate that it's an inexact science to say the least, but to me that's all the more reason to stay flexible and open-minded about it all.[/quote
I work in an expensive industry, and if a person makes a little mistake while doing paperwork than it could cost a lot of money. On the otherhand, if their job does not involve paperwork, which i deal with too in my industry, then there is not as much emphasis on that end. In that circumstance we use you list of references to see what kind of work you do. But if you cant turn in a resume without typo's than im not going to trust you to fill out permits which are vital for us to do business.
1 - Be rigid in your "must have" job requirements. Do you want the best person for this job or not? Well guess what, even the best might not fill all the squares. And how long can you sit - ie how much time/money/etc is the company losing - while that position remains unfilled and HR and staffers sit there because the "perfect person" hasn't arrived yet? Sure, you don't want to grab just anyone, but if you've had it open awhile and gone through a ton of resumes, it's time to look at who the best is and roll with it.
Probably the most common and so worst of the lot is the almighty college degree. Hey I have mine, big believer and all, but unless you're willing to hire people with minimal experience, guess what: any degrees for anyone with a fair number of years experience probably has little if anything to do w/that person's ability to do the job.
But the one that really gets me are when someone expects a person to know their obscure, proprietary systems or processes well, if at all Do you know how much you just narrowed the field and how many highly qualified people that could quickly learn it and are probably best of the job you just tossed out the window?
2 - Discard a highly qualified (perhaps even the most qualified) candidate because they had - gasp - even the tiniest of typos or their resume/cover letter/application, or it was otherwise anything less than 100% perfect (eg an extra space between 2 words or slightly diff font in one small spot, etc). Unless you are hiring a proofreader or secretary or some such, and esp if you are hiring for a job in which writing skills are not esp important, this is more than a little idiotic. Yeah, I know...they SHOULD be perfect, and I'm not saying ignore a horrifically sloppy resume, but come on - your job is to get the best person for the job, not the best proofreader. Even professional journalists screw up from time to time, and they ARE supposed to be letter perfect.
3 - This one is mostly for headhunters/staffers/etc. Insist someone come in to meet you even though you don't have any job prospects for them. Better yet, when they come in, bore them to tears with the background or history about your company, which trust me NONE of them could possibly give a rat's behind about. I understand the value of a face-to-face, but doing it just for giggles is stupid. Have a job you're willing to submit them for, assuming the meeting goes well. In other words: don't waste their time.
4 - Discard someone because they fumbled here and there during the interview. Obviously if you're hiring a salesmen or something similar that requires strong "presentation skills," that's different, but again: is the slickest guy what matters, or do you want the most qualified guy?
I realize it's a "seller's market," ie employers can afford to be picker these days, but these kind of things blow me away.
Truth is that for many jobs, hiring managers have more resumes than they could wallpaper their bathrooms with. There are generally a lot of qualified people for every position, and so they can afford to take any excuse you give them to kick you off the pile. This is why you simply have to make sure that everything is perfect with the resume. That's just how it goes.
When I was job searching, I was thankful for any opportunity to meet with a headhunter, even if they don't have a position just then. The point of the meeting is for you to take charge and drill into the recruiter's head how qualified you are, how you would be a good fit for a certain set of positions, etc. Keep in mind that the recruiter also has a pile of resumes sitting on his desk that he or she is trying to match up with jobs - face to face increases chances that they will remember you when certain positions come up.
In fact, the recruiter I met with face to face before any job came up was the one who led me to my present job.
Finally, there is no mercy for fumbling around in an interview. When there is a big line of qualified candidates, why should a hiring manager be impressed by the one who can't succinctly communicate? If I was to interview someone, I wouldn't just be looking to see that they are well-qualified on paper; I'm looking to get as much sense as to what kind of a person they are - can they articulate a point, are they wallflowers, are they assertive, are the combative, are they cooperative, can they think on their feet, etc. In most business jobs these days, you can't look to just hire someone who is trained to just do a bunch of technical things as stated on a resume; you need someone who can work well with various teams, think critically and conscientiously, learn on the fly, and just generally be flexible in a world that is ambiguous and changes rapidly.
Sorry, but that's just the way it goes. Everyone fumbles some interviews and flubs some things on their resume - that's why you repeatedly practice, revise, and adjust your approach as you go through your job search. The expectations is that you get better with time as you refine your search and learn from your mistakes. If someone tells me it is their 10th interview and they still can't articulate to me what their intermediate goals are, then they must not be paying attention.
Joey, relax. I'm sharing experience and not debating (in this instance). I've had a few of those "fly me out, put me up for a couple days, and take me to dinner" interviews. How do you get them?
By having a perfect resume and a decent track record. Those are a lot rarer now, but they do happen. FWIW, a few of those companies were ones that I decided I would NOT work for, once the spiel was finished.
Applications are sometimes done at the place of business. Unless you keep a full notebook of ever job and date, and every person's name and company name, errors will happen.
Someone mentioned the personality tests. I graded a variety of them and despised the bulk of them and the costs so much that I wrote one of my own. One of the great things about that is that I now must legally tell anyone who attempts to give me such a test "I'm sorry, but if you read the documentation of the S****** tests and other tests, it specifically says that once you have graded those tests your own results will not be accurate and you are effectively barred from taking those tests. I cannot take such a test." I'll give you a hint on those tests - a lot of them want you to sell your own grandmother out to the law if you are working for a company and she steals a cookie to feed a starving child. They are designed to eliminate the faintest possibility of theft by a low level employee, while those exact same skills are a job requirement for the highest executives (which is why the execs are never given those tests).
2 - Discard a highly qualified (perhaps even the most qualified) candidate because they had - gasp - even the tiniest of typos or their resume/cover letter/application, or it was otherwise anything less than 100% perfect (eg an extra space between 2 words or slightly diff font in one small spot, etc). Unless you are hiring a proofreader or secretary or some such, and esp if you are hiring for a job in which writing skills are not esp important, this is more than a little idiotic. Yeah, I know...they SHOULD be perfect, and I'm not saying ignore a horrifically sloppy resume, but come on - your job is to get the best person for the job, not the best proofreader. Even professional journalists screw up from time to time, and they ARE supposed to be letter perfect. .
If I was looking for a person who pays attention to detail (generally speaking, not just writing) the typos would say this candidate isn't it. Is his indifference to detail going to cost me money? Is safety an issue? The different fonts would say, this thing was hastily cut and pasted. Does the candidate want this job or just any job? Can this person not be bothered with spellcheck?
As a person who, in the past, has ranked qualified resumes (meaning somewhere else it was determined the person was eligible for the job they applied for), the biggest mistake I used to see was not tailoring the resume for the job sought, that is, emphasizing the experience and education that specifically addresses that particular position.
Landing a job is a competition. You may not know your competitors but if you are tied on experience and education, something has to make you look/sound better than the other guy to win the job. It's not just you versus the hiring person/interviewer. Those unseen candidates that outshine you are present in the decision, too.
As someone in the IT industry as well, here's how I see it.
A) Mistakes on the resume show lack of attention to detail.
B) I love written tests. Every time I take a written test, I get an offer. Too bad most places don't have tests. So how do they distinguish who's the better candidate? Every candidate says they are the best. The only thing the company has to go on is resume and interview. The resume can assume to be padded to sound as good as possible, so that really only leaves the interview.
C) Interview aren't about skills, but ability to fit in to the company. You wouldn't be at the interview if the skills weren't enough.
D) Most places have a laundry list of requirements, but unless the it's a large corporation with a specific need, they are looking for a general IT guy willing to learn.
Oh yeah, places that ask for your references and never call them. Mine would give me stellar reviews.
And places that ask for your SS# and drivers license # etc. on the first interview
NOWAY!! I am giving them that info, I just write down "upon second interview".
Most places you won't ever hear from them again after the first interview, why would I want to be sweating about these places having my personal info on someone's desk for someone to steal my identity. No company I have ever talked with has given me a hard time about it when I have put this down. In fact, if I ran the company, I would think it a plus in that I am a security-minded professional.
And shouldn't this thread be in the employment section?
If you're not interested in the history of the company, how can you expect them to think you will be interested in the working hard for them?
First off, the company I meant was the staffing company, not the company the prospective job was with (ie their "client"). But even so, what you say frankly still makes no sense. If you really think the current or "good" employees care about the history of the company, with rare exception you're kidding yourself. The ONLY thing about oh 99.99% of employees care about - and the the ONLY thing those in charge of hiring should be discussing with candidates - is the job. Now IF the company history or some other facts you throw out matter to the job, like their current projects or strategy, maybe an ongoing realignment (etc), that's of course a different story. But if (for example) someone is seeking a job at IBM, do you really think they care - or it matters - what year IBM was created or how it has X thousands of employees, blah blah blah? Hardly. And if you think someone who is interested in such pointless trivia automatically makes a better candidate than one who isn't, again you're deluding yourself. THE ONLY thing that matters is how well qualified they are do to that job. Period.
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Besides, why would you NOT want to hear about the history and culture of the company that's interviewing you?
I don't know why you lump history and "culture" together, as they are totally different things, but regarding history, because it's irrelevant.
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Isn't the quality and history of the company important when YOU decide to work for them?
History? No. "Quality?" Of course. But there's no way to really know that quality until you actually work there, so HR people blathering on about it only wastes everyone's time.
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Originally Posted by tigrunner
maschuett
check your response,i see 2 typo's
lol - I saw more than that. But to be fair, this is just an internet message board, so didn't want to take that shot
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Originally Posted by ambient
Truth is that for many jobs, hiring managers have more resumes than they could wallpaper their bathrooms with. There are generally a lot of qualified people for every position, and so they can afford to take any excuse you give them to kick you off the pile. This is why you simply have to make sure that everything is perfect with the resume. That's just how it goes.
Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I guess that's my point, ie it's weak excuse, not a valid reason.
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When I was job searching, I was thankful for any opportunity to meet with a headhunter, even if they don't have a position just then. The point of the meeting is for you to take charge and drill into the recruiter's head how qualified you are, how you would be a good fit for a certain set of positions, etc. Keep in mind that the recruiter also has a pile of resumes sitting on his desk that he or she is trying to match up with jobs - face to face increases chances that they will remember you when certain positions come up.
Good point. That one doesn't bother me as much as the others - I guess it stuck in my craw because one staffer mislead me in saying "let's meet about this job" and when I got there, she said she wasn't submitting me because I didn't have experience with (whatever) and then just blah blah blah-ed me to death about the company. I was very patient and pretended to be interested. I just abhor my time being wasted, to say nothing of what was basically a bait-and-switch move to "force" me to listen to all that. I think she was new and they were trying to get her some "practice."
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Finally, there is no mercy for fumbling around in an interview. When there is a big line of qualified candidates, why should a hiring manager be impressed by the one who can't succinctly communicate?
I think we're much more in agreement than it might seem. It's a question of degree. And it should vary depending on the type of job as well.
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If someone tells me it is their 10th interview and they still can't articulate to me what their intermediate goals are, then they must not be paying attention.
Trust me: their immediate goal is a job. I think it's hiring people who aren't paying attention.
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Do you know how much you just narrowed the field and how many highly qualified people that could quickly learn it and are probably best of the job you just tossed out the window?
