Conducting Telephone Interviews

[linda_sims at vanguard.com]

Donna Jones wrote on 05/17/2006 02:40:21 PM:

> > At 05:12 AM 5/17/2006, linda_sims at vanguard.com wrote:
> > >I've never found anything I didn't already know how 
> > >to do that I couldn't learn how to do very quickly 
> > >to a high degree of competence.
> > 
> > Fwiw, if you were interviewing with me, I'd consider that an ideal
> > answer.
> 
> John Posada replied:
> > and I see it as a not-very-good answer. To me, it shows that the
> > person has stayed in their comfort range and hasn't taken on any
> > really hard stuff.
> 
> 
> I've never found anything to be too hard for me to learn quickly and to
> a high degree of competence either (well, except maybe for matrices in
> college calculus...). I've told people that in interviews before, and it
> almost never failed to get me a job offer. My comfort range in technical
> communications is so large that sometimes even I don't know its
> boundaries. It sounds like Linda is like that, too. Spend a few minutes
> teaching us what you want us to do, and then let us go. In a short time,
> we'll be teaching others--and probably improving the process at the same
> time.
> 
> I consider Linda's answer to be just what I would want to hear. If a
> potential employer didn't like her answer, it's likely that she wouldn't
> want to work there anyway.  :-)
> 
> Donna

In the interests of tooting my own horn, Donna's interpretation pretty 
closely matches my intention and my actual experience. Up thread I 
mentioned that I love to learn new things, and it's true. I particularly 
_love_ being given a meaty problem and told to go solve it.

And John's reaction may explain why I haven't been hired when I give that 
answer. I have _got_ to learn to elaborate. Maybe I err too much on the 
side of caution, since I'm very confident of my abilities but don't want 
to give the impression of unwarranted arrogance.

And hey, all you people saying you'd hire me on the basis of some of these 
answers? I'm looking! ;)
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