We currently have a “situation” at the school where I teach and this would be a good place to get feedback.
One of our graduating students in Fashion is, to be quite honest, really overweight - probably 350 lbs at least.
I had her in classes, and she was a good student, talented and had a great personality. However, she is having great difficulty with job interviews, and we are starting to get the sneaking suspicion is really might have something to do with her appearance.
Granted, many high end retail stores make no secret that they only want employees that look like models who could/would/do wear their clothes. Although I am sure this is illegal in many ways, it is common practice.
This woman is always dressed nicely, and clean, etc. but obviously you cannot miss the fact that she is large beyond just hefty.
I was wondering how appearance fits into your ultimate decision on who gets hired.
(And yes, I know that legally you could never admit this, but let’s just keep this hypothetical and amongst us.)
Would you be able to put her weight aside if you felt she were the right candidate?
Would you only hire her for some position where she wasn’t the first person customers/clients would see when they entered the building?
Would her weight give you any other reason (health/insurance factors) that might make you not want to hire her?
I wouldn’t not hire her because she was fat. There are certainly plenty of overweight people around the office. But what might indirectly prevent her from getting hired is if her weight caused her to be socially isolated or lacking confidence.
Do you mentally discount people if they don’t ask questions during that part of the interview? It is probably different because, as I said above, I haven’t had to do a real interview at a place I’d even consider making a career, but I never have a question, so I just ask about turn over rate and such just so I don’t look like I don’t have a single question.
I really hate when places like Banana Republic or friggin Yogurtland ask “why do you want to work here?” I want to work there because they have an opening and I like paying my rent.
Well, if you are looking for a career with one of the largest companies in the world, with 150,000 employees in a hundred countries working on projects in nearly every industry and that actively tries to employ the best and brightest people they can find, I think it would be sort of strange to have absolutely no questions for someone who actually works there.
How about “what do you like about working there?” for starters.
Quite frankly, my concern as a manager is having people who are unable to think or motivate themselves. I don’t really want people who don’t care what sort of job they do so long as it is a paycheck. That is the major difference between the consultants and the support staff (admins, tech support, etc). Support staff are essentially drones. You call them up and they mindlessly follow a prescribed set of instructions. Consultants are supposed to go in and not only find creative solutions to problems, but to also identify solutions before other people see problems.
The only thing I can think of is people ask that question because they are looking to weed out negative attitudes. You want to work at BR because “it seems to be a clean, friendly environment with upscale clientele (compared to say, Old Navy)”. Or “you want a job where you interact with people and don’t sit at a desk all day”.
What will get you excluded is if you display what I call the “anger buzz”. It’s that sort of “why do I have to answer your stupid questions?” or “look, just give me a damn job already” attitude. I get that a lot of people take their management technique from bullshit “Good to Great” style management books. But our company is often a highly stressful, often ambiguous environemnt. If you can’t keep it together during the interview, how can I trust you not to be hostile to a demanding client?
Do you ever get people who you think would have the skill set you are looking for, but they don’t ‘interview well’? Do you make allowances for people being nervous specifically in an interviewing situation, or is it more the case that if they can’t do the interview, they can’t do the job?
I get both. People who are very technical but don’t interview well or have poor communication skills as well as people who are strong interviewers but lack some of the technical skills.
It’s a challenge because you will almost never find an ideal candidate. We aren’t a software development shop, so we generally just need a certain “good enough” level of technical expertise. To a certain extent, interpersonal and interviewing skills are more important than technical skills because consultants spend 90% of their time talking with clients and working with teams of people.
Another thing. Having met hundreds of candidates from a dozen schools over the years, I firmly believe where you went to school matters significantly. You see it in the level of professional polish, confidence and experience the students have when you meet them.
My first interview with a big six (back when there were six) , I was sitting on a couch and the interviewer tapped me on the shoulder to get me. I turned around and she was so stunning I missed the handshake. In my hire pod there were 10 men. I was the second shortest. I’m a legitimate six foot two. No woman in my hire pod was less than an eight. And that was college eyes rating them. When I met the general consulting population this was not atypical. Not that there were not funny looking people, or short people, working there. But if you compare it to any of the companies I worked at consulted at since you would see a pretty dramatic difference.
I actually felt like a diversity hire, as I was a balding 23 year old with bad skin.
I am not sure if it was selection bias (tall good looking people gravitate to big six) or discrimination (the big six want tall good looking people). But back in the nineties there did seem to be a bit of a bias one way or another.
I don’t know if it’s specifically “tall good looking people” as much as it is Type-A overacheiver types who were likely raised in affluent families, went to top colleges like the Ivy League, Patriot League or schools like Duke or Georgetown, played sports and were into all sorts of activities and whatnot.
I think that’s consulting firms in general. The few times I worked in “industry” for a bit, you could see a big difference.
Need answer fast - I’ve been told to expect a telephone interview today but it hasn’t happenned. I prompted the agency an hour or so ago. I’m on GMT, the client is on CET. It’s 16:30 where they are. Should I give them another nudge?
This is a very specific question to your situation - If somehow during the course of an interview with a candidate, you found out that they were very active on this message board, would you let them know that you were as well? Would you try and find out their username to see what their posting history was like? Would you look more favorably on that person because they post here?
If msmith537 doesn’t object I can jump in here too - I’ve done a lot of interviewing for administrative positions where the sole decision maker on who got the job was me so I have a bit of slightly different experience (i.e. different type of job, different expectations of the candidates, etc)
For me, offputting would be then end of it regardless of references. If I can’t stand to spend time with you even for a 1 hour interview, I’m sure not going to want to work with you everyday.
I think you should try to figure out why you’re ‘offputting’ as you say. I can give you some real life examples of when someone who may have been otherwise qualified for a position got themselves eliminated for ‘off putting’ behaviour (sadly, none of these are made up examples):
Showing up for the interview reeking of booze. Listen - if you need a shot to psych yourself up for an interview, I don’t care - interviewing is stressful and maybe a zing takes the edge off, but if I can smell it on you accross the table, all I see when I look at you is someone who’s never going to be at work due to the ‘stomach flu’.
Showing up for the interview reeking of smokes. I wouldn’t rule someone out of a job for being a smoker, but if they stink - forget it. Wash your hands, put on fresh clothing, don’t smoke right before you come in to the interview. Do something to minimize the smell, 'cus really, if you don’t smoke, it’s pretty gross and not something you want to sniff all day.
Being over confident. ‘There’s nothing about this job that would be challenging for me!’ Really? Nothing? Not working with a new group of people? Learning new systems? Working at a different place? Honestly, you don’t sound confident - you kind of sound like a bit of a dick. I’ve worked here for 15 years and there are still challenges - just because this is a lower level postion (NOT entry level) doesn’t mean there’s going to be nothing to challenge you - to suggest it makes you sound like a bit of a douche.
Being over keen (this may be where you’re having trouble). Showing an interest in a position is great. Stalking the company is not. Saying things like ‘I WILL be working here’ makes you sound a bit like you won’t take no for an answer - guess what - sometimes you need to be able to take no for an answer.
Insulting the interviewer, even subtly. This is just not smart and makes me question your judgement.
When asked things like ‘Describe a situation where things didn’t go as planned, and what did you do to solve them.’ don’t slag off your former boss/employer. Ever. Even if they were the biggest dick on the face of the planet - come up with a different example. I have no idea who this person is - maybe they’re a total douche, or maybe you’re a shit to deal with - I’m not going to risk finding out which.
Try to be friendly and smile a little, even if you’re not a smiler. If I meet you and smile and shake your hand, you can make an effort to do the same. Otherwise I’m going to think about looking at your sourpuss all day and it’s not a nice thought.
I guess it depends what you’re brining up. If you say something like 'I’m not familiar with the computer system your company uses, but I pick systems up very quickly." - no problem - good even. If you say ‘I have 17 freshly frozen human heads in my freezer.’ not so much. It doesn’t even have to be that extreme - ‘I have trouble adapting to change.’, ‘I don’t work well under pressure.’, ‘People say I’m difficult.’ No, no, no - keep this crap to yourself, and if people say you’re difficult - for God’s sake do something about it - you’re not a unique snowflake who needs to be accomodated - you’re one of about 100 people who can do this job - don’t give me a reason to boot your ass of the ‘Maybe’ list.
I’m not sure how you would work this in without it being really weird. I can’t imagine asking something like this either - it’s a bit intrusive.
As far as making snap judgements - well, everyone does it; however, I think most professional people can look past an initial gaff (assuming it’s not huge) and look at the actual meat and potatoes, so to speak. That being said, I think you still need to try to warm up to your interviewer - if you seem overly hostile or agressive, or sucky or whatever, no one is going to choose to spend a lot of time with you if they can help it.
Generally you don’t have to worry about being a pest with a placement agency.
The thing to remember about interviewers is that our job isn’t actually interviewing people. We get caught up in whatever crisis needs immediate attention or whatever. So usually if we are running late and don’t call you back right away it’s nothing to do with you. In your case, generally a voice or email should be sufficient to let them know you are waiting and to see if they need to reschedule.
Ironically, I can’t tell you the number of interviews I’ve gone on where the interviewer felt a need to communicate to me that he was hungover, “they drink a lot in his company” or “have a work hard/play hard attitude”.
Actually, HR does the background checks and I never see them. For the most part, unless you lie about your college or work history, background checks are mostly just a rubber stamp. If someone were to fail the background check, I would probably just be told we can’t hire them.
No. I would assume they spend more time posting than actually working.
Serious question, not trying to zing you, or catch you up in something:
If I told you that I would be comfortable, and have no problem taking direction from a 35 year old manager, would you, or the other interview staffers believe it? Really believe it? Also, would you really ask that question?
The reason I ask, is because the "would you be comfortable’ thing was used by the pastor of our church, way back when, to let the black people that dropped in know that they weren’t welcome.
Also, a woman asked me this a few years ago, about working for a woman boss, when I didn’t get *that *job. (Up till then, I had always had female managers, and never had had a problem.)
Thanks,
Best wishes,
hh
What would you think of someone whose work history included being a professional poker player for several years? (Assume they are able to prove they made a decent living while doing so.)
Do you think it would be better to leave it off, in case the interviewer has a bias one way or the other about that kind of profession? Do you think most interviewers have the same opinion?
Don’t really have any questions, but I’ve interviewed a fair number of candidates, and I found this to be an accurate catalog of bad interviewees: The 10 Types of Crappy Interviewees - The Oatmeal.
Suppose a candidate can’t provide professional references because all the people who know them professionally are coworkers? How much of a strike against the applicant is this?
