Today I had an interview. It's the first time in almost 3 years that I've been to a job interview, and I had almost forgotten how horrible they make you feel.
For one thing, I think that HR people are a cruel sort. I suspect they thrive on making the interviewee squirm at ridiculous questions.
And by ridiculous questions, I mean the "typical" job interview question that I stoutly believe cannot be answered honestly, by anyone. The sorts of questions that if you answered honestly, you'd be kicked right out the door before you had a chance to finish your honest answer.
For example, the HR interviewer asked me what my career goals are and how this job fits in with that. On the surface, it's a pretty inocuous question. However, they don't want to hear that you would really like to hit the jackpot and not work another day in your life, nor do they want to hear how your career goals are much loftier than anything you could possibly achieve working at their company, so really this job is just a landing place to earn some dough in the meantime.
This is the type of question that forces you to lie. To fabricate elaborate plans on a moment's notice, incorporate Company X into your lifelong dreams and ambitions, and once again express how grateful you'd be to work in servitude to them.
Another question that I find to be ridiculous is: How long to you plan to live in (this town)? Well, I don't have any plans per se to move at this juncture. How's that for an answer? If you're looking for an employee to dedicate his life, nay his soul, to the institution, just fucking say so. If I look like I have one foot out the door, I probably do, but I sure as hell am not going to say so in a job interview.
The best interviews are more like a conversation than a question and answer session, and I've had very few of them. The HR guy at my former company was an excellent interviewer. Ten minutes after you finished talking to him, you had this vague feeling that you'd had information extracted from you, but it happened without your knowledge or any sort of realization at the time.
The problem this time was the interviewer was filling out some sort of HR form during the interview. Instead of posing the questions on the form as a scenario, or trying to work them into some sort of conversational format, he just read them as printed. It's always a little unnerving that way, because it's left up to you to end your answer, and wait for another question to follow.
Overall, I think the interview went pretty well. It's unlikely that I will know anything for a while, but I'll keep you posted.
Oct.15.03 at 5:45 PM
tim writes:
yeah, I'm not a big fan of interviews, or public speaking in general. I get nervous and tend to make jokes.
I really don't think jokes go over in interviews. Humorless commie bastards.
Ma' writes:
I HATE job interviews! Precisely for what you said...you have to lie...but you never know for sure which lie it is that they want! If I tell them how much I know and how many skills I have, then I'm "overqualified"...but if I tell them "I don't know, but I'm a quick learner" you just kissed your possibilities good-bye...unless it's a crooked company that's looking for someone who hasn't a clue to keep the books so confused the auditors won't be able to prove a thing against you...Yes...That actually happened. Fortunately, I warned them that they were being awfully un-clever about the whole thing...and said my good-byes before the law came and threw their sorry asses in jail !(and no, I didn't narc them out, except to OSHA...they were so obvious...or were once I revamped the paperwork...that they were easily found out by their own internal auditors.)
Could you guess that this was a Texas Oil Company???
"I Lied Too Much In My Interview, And Now I Regret writes:
You know, a handy lesson I've learned about interviewing for jobs is to get completely blitzed the night before hand, and drunkenly engage in as many fights as you possibly can. Attend the interview well dressed, but hungover. The hangover will insure that you actually Do Not Give A Shit, as opposed to just telling yourself you don't give a shit in order to pump your psyche for the interrogation. That's what I did, and now I'm in management.