Not very constructive criticism

[strung out]

the worst feedback i ever got was that they had absolutely no doubt that i could do the job perfectly well, but they didn't think i'd fit in with the people who already worked there. that was a complete kick to the bollocks.

 

[sojourner]

I've also found that some of the best performers in interview are some of the biggest slackers and wasters going! They have good performing skills, that's all.

I always used to try and reassure people in interviews too - one girl I took on spent the entire time sweating so hard she had rivulets running through her make up, poor lass. She was one of the best workers I ever had though

 

[Biddlybee]

That rings true... it's called blagging, soj

I just haven't got the gift of the gab. I'm not even applying for any jobs at the moment and the prospect of interviews still scares me

 

[kained&able]

the worst feedback i ever got was that they had absolutely no doubt that i could do the job perfectly well, but they didn't think i'd fit in with the people who already worked there. that was a complete kick to the bollocks.

Oooh I had one of them the other month

Was worded as the other bloke would fit in better but still

Bigots if you ask me, was just because i didn't call him skip i reckon.


dave

 

[sojourner]

That rings true... it's called blagging, soj

I just haven't got the gift of the gab. I'm not even applying for any jobs at the moment and the prospect of interviews still scares me

Aye

I'm fucking shit at being interviewed myself. I haven't had one for YEARS now, but I'm losing tenants hand over fist at the moment, so I could well be back in the game again before too long

I'm the same as you with interviews and exams btw. I can know it all, do the job with my eyes shut etc - but put me in those situations and I can't even read or speak my own name. Brain just shuts down

 

[strung out]

Oooh I had one of them the other month

Was worded as the other bloke would fit in better but still

Bigots if you ask me, was just because i didn't call him skip i reckon.

they interviewed my sister for the same job a few weeks later. she didn't get it either. fuck knows what kind of square they got to do it in the end.

 

[HobgoblinMan]

Tell them to take their job and fill it! Seriously, if we all put our heads together, I am sure we can come up with a one liner you can deliver that is so devastating that it makes them seriously reconsider their position. And then you can tell them to fuck themselves and we can have a whipround to hire you a Harley to walk out of the office and drive off on.

Ken, remember the Seinfeld episode when George goes to great lengths to deliver a comeback line long after the moment has passed. "The jerk store called and they're running out of you...."

I see the same kind of thing happening here.

 

[ericjarvis]

Interview technique rule one. The interviewers are likely to be more nervous than the interviewee. Failing to get a job is failing to get a job, whereas hiring the wrong person could, in extreme cases, lead to the company/organisation getting in a real mess. So when being interviewed do your best to put the poor nervous interviewers at ease.

Rule two. Interviews work both ways. They may want to know if they want you to work for them, but equally this is where you get to see if they are people you want to work for. Let them bother about the first aspect and concentrate on working out if you want to work there.

Value yourself more than you value the job you are applying for.

Generally if I get an interview I get offered the job. Unfortunately I'm not all that great at filling in application forms, and my CV is necessarily a tad eclectic.

 

[kabbes]

Most interviewers haven't been trained to interview either.

What do you do kabbes? You know a lot about this.

Actuary.

At my last job, though, I was responsible for graduate recruitment. In the 4 years I did it, we had a 100% acceptance rate for offers sent and a 0% drop-out rate. Those I recruited 6 years ago are now pretty much running the middle-management of that company. Make me proud, they do.

I really had to fight against the institutional sexism inherent in the previous process too. In 4 years we went from <10% female recruitment to nearly 50/50.

 

[soulfulofsoul]

Quote:
A combination of approaches massively beats any single approach.

This combination should ideally include:

* Actual assessment of them doing the job (obviously good, but in practice unlikely to be achievable!)

The above is the best, but if unavailble then (and in approximate order of how good they are individually)...

* Formal testing of work-based skills
* Formal testing of experience-based knowledge
* Formal testing of logical deduction
* Formal testing of creative thinking
* Psychometric testing.

That's all from the top of my head, so I might be misremembering some things or forgetting to include others.

Well, well below the above came structured interviews. Then miles below that comes unstructured interviews, random selection and graphology, which are amusingly in that order. Yes -- testing somebody's handwriting turned out to be marginally worse than actually picking at random. (There is no statistical significance to it being worse though, it's just how it happened to come out in testing).

IME interviews are a pretty poor way to select and I do understand the cost of turnover etc.

The first point is, of course, the ideal method. I wonder what exactly you mean by point 2 though?

But it's not really feasible to do this, is it? I imagine it's probably easier for technical jobs, but how would you recruit for say a marketing type job Kabbes?

 

[kabbes]

To be trite, I wouldn't. I don't know about marketing. But that's the point -- the testing should be structured by those who DO know about it.

Look, if you are recruiting somebody then you are doing it for a reason. So you need to get that reason straight in your mind. Then you need to identify the skills needed to meet that reason. Only then can you work out how to test for those skills. And only then, finally, can you work out the success criteria for those measurements.

Yes, it's hard. So? Did anybody ever claim that it should be easy? It can be done though. And it's worth doing right.

I promise you that it is entirely feasible. I was recruiting for actuarial consultancy. We had a vast range of skills we had to test for, but we still managed it. Objectively and demonstratively successfully too.

 

[oryx]

The interviewers are likely to be more nervous than the interviewee.

Having been on both sides of the interview table about ten times each in the last five years, I'd have to disagree with you.

Failing to get a job is usually failing to get out of a situation you don't want to be in - a job you hate, a contract coming to an end, unemployment.

I don't think employers worry when they interview about appointing the wrong person. When I'm on an interview panel my main worry is not getting any appointable candidates. (That and appearing bored to the interviewee. )

Pootle - for some reason, IMHE when I've not done a good interview the next one is always fine! The important thing is not to let a bad experience put you off. It sounds like they may not have been very good interviewers.

 

[boohoo]

take what you think they were right about,that is don't beat yourself up, but logically unemotionally look at what happened and reflex and what you thought was good and what was bad - and learn from it for next time. They sound like a bit of a mean bunch so do you really want to further your career with such a critical bunch.

The other year, I had loads of interviews, some I thought went great, didn't get the job, some were alright til I figured the interviewer had decided they weren't interested ( you can tell) and then i'd try and back track whatever I had said. In the end I got a job through working as a temp and they eventually employed me. Still the interview practice turned out useful for this years job losses.

As Bee said, chin up...

 

[pootle]

'you didn't seem to know what the role entailed'.

Ooh. Wierd. More electrogirl/pootle syncronicity (sp?). I got told that too. What with this and the baked bean revelation it's like we're living each others lives or something

Seriously though Ted, thanks for all the advice and that people. This is literally the first time today I've been able to think/talk/type about this without my eyes welling up which is actually so not me. It's just a facking job.

I'm finding it hard to ask for further feedback though as the panel head is essentially the director of our org and she and I have "history" that I wouldn't like to add to.

Is complicated to explain and I don't want to sound like I'm making excuses but I'm slightly para that my card is marked somewhat having been spotted as the person who ask valid but awkward questions in the team, and says the things that everyone else is thinking...e.g all the assistants in our place have been asked to volunteer to take over a certain role and no one from my team has volunteered for wahtever reason. Our team manager has told all of the assistants to email her and explain/give their reasons why they haven't volunteered! I mean, wtf? Everyone thought this was shocking, but I was the only one who spoke up for our assistants...in my eyes, it was the right thing to do, but in a way also detriemental to my image with management.

Ach! Am rambling...but yeah, as ever, onwards! sideways! etc etc

 

[Sadken]

Ken, remember the Seinfeld episode when George goes to great lengths to deliver a comeback line long after the moment has passed. "The jerk store called and they're running out of you...."

I see the same kind of thing happening here.

LOVE that episode. When he buys all the shrimp to get them to say it again...

 

[Gavin Bl]

Thing is, it doesn't matter if interviews are a bad way to get jobs, or if many interviewers are unpleasant or arrogant - because, this is how it is. You have to go through this to get the role, regardless of the failings of the interview as a method. It is the method.

As others have said, get as much detailed feedback. Definitely don't get the arsehole about it.

Don't see it as a knock, see it as the final definitive proof that you really need to work on your interview techniques and nerves - you can't scrape along in interviews any more, if you want to progress past a certain level. This is a blessing in disguise, if you like.

Get more feedback, start putting in some work building up a repertoire of things to say, achievements to talk about, practise them....

This book is an excellent read, and really resets your head, as to what is going on in an interview, and how you can make the most of it.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Winning-Interview-New-Way-Succeed/dp/071267019X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256292704&sr=8-1

When you get the job you want in the future, you will even be able to use this as an example of your ability to learn new skills, respond to criticism, etc.

 

[Cloo]

That just sounds like really poor feedback, badly done in every way. I think they're at fault here, not you. Hope something comes your way to cheer you up soon.

 

[scifisam]

Sounds like you'd do much better interviewing at a different company. Some of the feedback they gave you might be right, but some of it will be the result of them viewing you through a negatively-biased filter.

Stella's job interview sounds like it was for somewhere with really bloody difficult workmates, going on those questions.

I also do well at interviews for some reason. Guess I am basically an ace blagger.

One time on my PGCE I did get terrible feedback from a lesson observation: I was told that I didn't use enough arm gestures and that my body language was defensive. My mentor left the comment in and marked me lower because of body language even after I pointed out that one arm of mine was controlling the whiteboard and the other was broken and in a plaster cast and sling, therefore quite difficult to gesture with or move from its position strapped across my chest.

 

[pootle]

The thing is though I think I'm a pretty good blagger. I'm fairly confident and can generally hold my own if say I'm in a new social situation or whateves.

It's something about interviews and exams that trash my nerve.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Agree with Kabbes. I almost always set tests - write a marketing plan for widget X in two hours, say - and get them scored blind by the whole team, for transparency. Admittedly I then fiddle the scoring so that the candidate I like wins, but the process would otherwise be impeccable.

 

[electrogirl]

Ooh. Wierd. More electrogirl/pootle syncronicity (sp?). I got told that too. What with this and the baked bean revelation it's like we're living each others lives or something

Seriously though Ted, thanks for all the advice and that people. This is literally the first time today I've been able to think/talk/type about this without my eyes welling up which is actually so not me. It's just a facking job.

I'm finding it hard to ask for further feedback though as the panel head is essentially the director of our org and she and I have "history" that I wouldn't like to add to.

Is complicated to explain and I don't want to sound like I'm making excuses but I'm slightly para that my card is marked somewhat having been spotted as the person who ask valid but awkward questions in the team, and says the things that everyone else is thinking...e.g all the assistants in our place have been asked to volunteer to take over a certain role and no one from my team has volunteered for wahtever reason. Our team manager has told all of the assistants to email her and explain/give their reasons why they haven't volunteered! I mean, wtf? Everyone thought this was shocking, but I was the only one who spoke up for our assistants...in my eyes, it was the right thing to do, but in a way also detriemental to my image with management.

Ach! Am rambling...but yeah, as ever, onwards! sideways! etc etc

Look, are you actually me? Because if you are let's just get it over and done with and avoid this whole hoopla and say what's what.

I think we're sad for the same reasons though, it's so frustrating knowing you can do a job but not being given the chance. And I think the reason I was so upset about not getting this job was cos I know I could do it but I hadn't done enough prep. So it's my own fault.

Basically those aren't the same reasons at all are they? I didn't get my job because I spent the morning watching 'loose women' and you didn't get your job because your interviewers were bellender carlisles.

Oh shutup i don't know what i'm banging on about i'm high.

 

[gavman]

Exactly. A lot of people are just the same. Interview skills correlate poorly with work skills, for most situations. Personal biases are completely killer too. Studies show that most interviewers will make up their minds within the first 30 seconds -- everything after that just acts to confirm their biases (known as the "halo and horns" effect).
I'm genuinely good at giving interviews precisely because I am aware how dodgy they are and how personal bias completely skews them. I go out of my way to try to eliminate that. I still try to make sure that the interview is not the arbiter though, if at all possible.

i'm far better in interview than i am at the job. as soon as i know i'm to be interviewed i feel 'it's in the bag'. my tutor at college suggested i apply for oxbridge simply because of the panel interview, where most people fall apart. i even had a job that involved just being interviewed, for practise, by management types
i used to get to play the devil's advocate and challenge the interviewers, take control and make them talk instead of me, that sort of thing

none of which makes me a desirable employee

 

[moonsi til]

Going back to to the OP I'm sorry that the interview didn't go your way. Did you have a choice in accepting feedback? If so well done for accepting it.

Where I work feedback that's more than you were not successful this time, sorry is not mandatory to accept. In early Jan 2008 I decided that I wanted a new job so started applying within the same organisation. I knew that it may take a while and that personal politics would come into it such as professional disagreements that I had previously with people that might interview me.

All in all I had 4 interviews, accepted feedback twice. On my 3rd interview my view of the manager was that he is lazy arse and I just didn't want him commenting on me. On my 4th interview I was told I was 'fantastic' and was offered the job. In all it took 9 months to get a different job and each interview I had I believe helped me to secure the job I have now. On my 2nd interview I got called back for a 2nd interview as it was between me and another person. I got asked some great questions and came away with a lot of respect for the 3 people who interviewed me and said so at feedback time.

My interview preferance is a 50/50 with a presentation and questions.

 

[kyser_soze]

IME interviews are a pretty poor way to select and I do understand the cost of turnover etc.

The first point is, of course, the ideal method. I wonder what exactly you mean by point 2 though?

But it's not really feasible to do this, is it? I imagine it's probably easier for technical jobs, but how would you recruit for say a marketing type job Kabbes?

Practical tests for marketing are a piece of piss, and can be done in both individual and group interview situations. All you do is give the candidates a pre-existing client brief and see what they come up with.

The people I've recruited over the years actually have better records of retaining their roles and sticking with their companies that I do...2 of them now account directors, from graduate trainees...