Coffee Table Declarations
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
At this very moment there is a young man sitting in the lobby waiting to be interviewed. This misguided gentleman is wearing some kind of cheap cologne. I can tell you this despite the fact that he is across the room from me. I should also mention that he arrived in a leather jacket atop a cheap suit and it's raining out.
I enjoy the interview process from my vantage point. I certainly know the discomfort of being on the interviewee side of the fence, but this is something new. In fact, I've offered my initail impressions to HR so often that they now ask me what I think of each candidate who comes in. I've seen it all. There was the older lady whose hair was an unnatural shade of maroon who filled out her application with a pink-inked pen, instead of the standard blue we provide for just that purpose. There was the individual of ambiguous gender known by the ambiguous name of "Sam". There was the guy who showed up two hours early, asked if he could use the bathroom, then left and came back on time. I'm not making this stuff up.
I think it would be really funny to have a candid-camera type show where people pretend to be interview candidates and do things like show up in sweats or show up dressed appropriately, but in the middle of the interview, start answering questions in a funny voice or give answers that are completely the opposite of what you should say during an interview such as, Interviewer: "so, why did you leave your last job?" Interviewee on candid camera show: "actually, I was fired because they caught me photocopying my butt." And the whole point of this show would be to trick the interviewer and then at the end tell them they are on camera and it's all staged and everyone would laugh.
Actually, I can't take complete credit for this idea. Someone really clever assisted me in coming up with the candid-camera interview show back when I was going through the dreaded interview process. And the credit for the being-fired-for-photocopying-their-butt idea goes to a temp I worked with for a couple of days at my last company who actually admitted to me that this was the very reason he was currently doing temp work. But at least he wasn't wearing cheap cologne.
I enjoy the interview process from my vantage point. I certainly know the discomfort of being on the interviewee side of the fence, but this is something new. In fact, I've offered my initail impressions to HR so often that they now ask me what I think of each candidate who comes in. I've seen it all. There was the older lady whose hair was an unnatural shade of maroon who filled out her application with a pink-inked pen, instead of the standard blue we provide for just that purpose. There was the individual of ambiguous gender known by the ambiguous name of "Sam". There was the guy who showed up two hours early, asked if he could use the bathroom, then left and came back on time. I'm not making this stuff up.
I think it would be really funny to have a candid-camera type show where people pretend to be interview candidates and do things like show up in sweats or show up dressed appropriately, but in the middle of the interview, start answering questions in a funny voice or give answers that are completely the opposite of what you should say during an interview such as, Interviewer: "so, why did you leave your last job?" Interviewee on candid camera show: "actually, I was fired because they caught me photocopying my butt." And the whole point of this show would be to trick the interviewer and then at the end tell them they are on camera and it's all staged and everyone would laugh.
Actually, I can't take complete credit for this idea. Someone really clever assisted me in coming up with the candid-camera interview show back when I was going through the dreaded interview process. And the credit for the being-fired-for-photocopying-their-butt idea goes to a temp I worked with for a couple of days at my last company who actually admitted to me that this was the very reason he was currently doing temp work. But at least he wasn't wearing cheap cologne.
