Re: Strange Interview Practices?

[Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>]

Elna Tymes wrote:

>I think there's a difference between trying to convince the 
interviewer that
you're willing to play the games necessary to be part of the team as a 
permanent
employee and convincing the interviewer that you have the stuff 
necessary to do
the job he/she needs done better/faster than any other candidate.

True. But the two games do have some similarities. In both cases, you 
put on a persona to please the other person, or at least try to say the 
right things, which was probably what the original poster was getting at.

> One of the reasons I chose to become a contractor many years ago was 
because I
no longer wanted to play the head games ill-prepared interviewers use when
looking for permanent employees.

You said it. The process is especially wearisome when you know exactly 
what the interviewer is trying to do and not only know  f the theory 
behind the head games, but understand that they're twenty years out of 
date and as crazy as a soup sandwich. In this situation, exactly the 
**worst** thing you can do is prompt the interviewer when they don't get 
the theory quite right; it shows that you know what what's going on, and 
that's disturbing to someone who imagines that they're being clever and 
manipulative. Instead, you have to keep a straight face, and give the 
right answer. And that's hard for me, partly because I get impatient 
going through the dogeared script, but mainly because I keep having the 
perverse temptation to give the wrong answer, just to make the interview 
less boring. But, as I constantly observe, I don't go about these things 
the right way.

(Which reminds me of George Macdonald Fraser's "The General Danced At 
Dawn," in which the protagonist, shortly after World War II, is being 
tested at officer's school by a psychiatrist. In the word association 
test, he knows that sane answers are "Freud" for "Father" and "Betty 
Grable" for "Sex," but ends up scribbling "Father Grable" for "Sex" as 
he's torn by the same perversity. Watching, the psychiatrist is making 
gulpingnoises of disbelief).

As a contractor, the process is much cleaner. The interview is more 
nearly equal. As a result, the head game preliminaries either don't 
appear or last a much shorter time. As the interviewee, my main concern 
is to appear professional and reliable, while the interviewer's main 
concern is whether I seem able to do the job. Maybe the difference is 
that, as a contractor, I'm more likely to be talking to someone like the 
CTO, rather than an HR person full of half-digested, stale ideas.

--
Bruce Byfield 604.421.7177 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com

"So watch all you sailors, who spend your leave ashore,
You'll have to get up early to be smarter than a whore,
Your coat and watch will disappear, your hat and boots as well,
'Cause New York girls are tougher than the other side of hell."
- Traditional, "New York Girls (Can You Dance the Polka?)"





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