Margaret Says

The last blog was about what not to say in interview, you know, the NORMAL dumb questions. This week, I thought I’d write about the absolute silliest things ever  that my colleagues have been told their candidates said on interview (not through Merit, I hasten to add)… You sometimes read articles like this on msn home page, but I thought I’d write about examples that I can swear actually happened (well, unless my colleagues were lying to me, of course, but that would never happen). I’d like to say that I’m relating these so you can learn from them. But

Yup, that they do. Think about it, lads and lassies. Let’s start with the more mundane jobs – I don’t want to offend anyone with what I consider mundane but e.g. if you’re a minimum-wage barista, then you have to be pleasant to customers, or you’ll start affecting their revenue as customers disappear to the shop a couple of blocks away. You have to be nice to colleagues, too: My local supermarket has in recent months lost lots of friendly, helpful check-out staff because they couldn’t take the less-than-adorable store manager. At the other end of the scale, CEOs known

….today’s lesson, gals and guys, will be to talk about the wrongstuff when you visit an employment agency. First, though, please, a word about employment agencies from our point of view. We are here to help you find jobs, and to help our clients find the very best people to fill those jobs. We help our candidates, for free, with their resumes, with their interview techniques, with advice on how not to blow it. Candidates for their part should recognize that, friendly, helpful, and sometimes informal though we might be, we are still interviewing you, just as our clients do.

Usually it’s so simple deciding what to wear for interview and indeed on the job that it’s hardly worth discussing. But the younger generation has a different sensibility from boring old Margaret, so that it’s worth a blog article about it. Not that I, Margaret, am the one who decides what’s correct! It’s your potential employers who rule the roost. Here are the guidelines from a major insurance company (thanks for giving me permission to print, chaps)…. Insurance companies are a good standard for deciding what’s appropriate for a lot of New York companies. They are formal without being stuffy.

Lovely company, people seem normal and you could work happily with them. Good job, money and benefits. We’ve established therefore that you really want the job. But frankly, the interviewing team e.g. mixture of HR, managers and future colleagues haven’t quite got it together to co-ordinate questions & feedback. In the course of the interviews they all ask the same “difficult” question. Clearly they have all read the same book, “How to Interview People and Thereby  Impress Your Mother”. How do you answer so that you don’t sound stale? Worse, what if comes out that you gave an identical answer

It’s easy to obsess about the difficult interview questions. You know the sort of thing:  “What’s the most awkward situation you’ve ever dealt with?” (Tempting to answer, “I’m in it right now. How am I doing?”). But don’t forget the simple rules of interviewing. It’s a form of kabuki theater (stylized, formal theatre to the uninitiated), and you shouldn’t really try to bend or, heaven forbid, break the rules. It’s probably the first time the potential employer will have met you and if you do anything too out-the-ordinary, they’re going to start worrying, “Whatever will they do/wear/say when they have