How to give an interview, In an interview it is easy to make a judgement about the candidate. But most often people who conduct interviews forget that even they are equally being judged.
Enough articles had been about the dos and don’ts of facing an interview.
There are several guidelines about the code of conduct while presenting and giving your best shot in an interview.
I would like to highlight the other side of the coin.
I remember during my placements I was given series of lectures starting from the dress code to maintaining eye contact to the posture of sitting, blah blah blah…
Problem is there is no fixed rule of what really clicks.
If I dressed formal my boss turned out in boxers (alright that is a bit of an exaggeration but you get my point).
In an interview it is easy to make a judgement about the candidate. But most often people who conduct interviews forget that even they are equally being judged.
Just because you are on the other side of the table doesn’t mean the candidate isn’t noticing your code of conduct. It’s a different case that you are not informed as no candidate would dare to call a spade a spade.
So let me list some sample cases of interviews where the interviewer makes a fool of himself/ herself:
Calling the candidates for an interview and making them wait for hours. I have no idea if this is some sort of a style statement to make people wait.
Yes the company has loads of work and you are a busy person then why don’t you schedule the interview to some other time…someone coming for a job isn’t really so jobless in life.
“So are you married or planning to get married?” Seriously, quit the job and join a matrimonial company. How is someone’s marital status of any relevance to the person’s skillset or expertise?
Oh yes I see many interviewers speaking in defence that the relevance is what if the person joins the company and then gets married and quits.
Quitting and firing is a part and parcel of a job scenario. People don’t quit only because of marriage. There are various reasons like better job prospects or career development, higher studies, office politics, etc.
Whatever is the reason, marriage is an extremely personal matter and it is stupid to base your selection process on someone’s marriage plans.
The kind of questions a person asks reveals a lot about his personality.
If you are asking something dumb like if a person smokes or not then immediately the candidate is taking a mental note of your relevance level. Your irrelevant questions become a give-away for you not being considered seriously.
Make the right eye contact. Especially while interviewing a female candidate please don’t check her out.
Just because you are conducting the interview doesn’t mean you can use the ‘F’ letter word after every sentence. Even if it’s a gesture, at least let it sound normal and not forced.
Trust me it doesn’t sound cool when you deliberately use the word more than usual. You are making a fool of yourself.
Next time you are taking an interview stick to the relevant questions and watch out for your code of conduct. You never know if you might suddenly bump on the person you had interviewed, in a situation where his/ her judgement matters.
