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DWeber wrote:
> The list goes on, and on. Tell me, are ANY of these personal
> questions appropriate for a technical interview...or any interview at
> ALL?????? I feel that if they want to know how you react in certain
> situations they should give you hypothetical scenarios such as "What
> would you do if ....." Not ask for personal, very specific incidents.
Diana, this sounds very much like an interviewing system we use here
called Targeted Selection (TM?). The point of Targeted Selection is to
get very specific examples of things applicants have done in the past,
not hypothetical answers, because you aren't interested in what the
applicant *thinks* they would do -- you want to know what they have
already done. In fact, one of the most important things the interviewer
can do in a TS interview is to drag specific incidents out of the
interviewee -- and it's like pulling teeth sometimes. You want to know
what the situation was, how they handled it, and what was the result. If
you don't get all of those questions answered, it ends up hurting the
applicant because they don't get "credit" for what they've done.
However, I must say that we use it as a final interview, not as a
"weeding out" technique. And I agree that the questions they asked you
were definitely dwelling on the negatives. Our TS questions are more
positive. For example, instead of asking:
> 3. Describe a time when you tried to persuade another worker to
> "conform" to your standards...and lost the arguement.
a TS question might be "Describe a time when you had to set standards
for others" or various questions on teamwork. It *is* a legitimate
interview technique, and it works... but I don't think the people who
interviewed you use the same book we use! ;-)
Tracy
==============================================
Tracy Boyington tracy_boyington -at- okvotech -dot- org
Oklahoma Department of Vocational and Technical Education
Stillwater, OK, USA http://www.okvotech.org/cimc/home.htm
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