Interviewing Is A Flawed Process

How many of us have come back from an interview and said to ourselves, “I could have done better.  I wonder if I blew it.”  I tell my candidates not to over-think or to rehash their interviews.  What is done is done.  However, I have always believed that interviewing is a flawed process:  It doesn’t matter who you are, but you only get a few minutes – half an hour or, if you are lucky, an hour to strut your stuff and tell who you are and what you can do.  All too often the words just don’t come out right.  Or, even if the words are right, they sometimes get misinterpreted.

It isn't just the candidates who blow interviews, sometimes it is the interviewer.

So much on an interview depends not just on the interviewee (candidate) but on the interviewer.  I often hear feedback that during the half an hour or so, the interviewer talked almost all the time, asking very few questions.  My candidates tell me they barely had time to talk. Then, often, I get feedback that my candidate was, “too quiet”.

When I know an interviewer does that, I counsel my candidates to be sure to interrupt so that they can talk and let the interviewer know who they are.  But interviews go bad for other reasons. All too often, an interviewer asks an ambiguous question and the candidate chooses an answer, but it is not the response the interviewer wanted to hear.  Or, a candidate answers the question and the interviewer picks up on only a small detail of the response and blows that detail all out of proportion, making the candidate wrong for the job.  Recently, I had a candidate mention something in his background which had little to do with the job he was interviewing for, but which he thought might ultimately be relevant.  The agency president who was interviewing him concluded that he did not have the right perspective for the job.  His background, personality and outlook made him perfect for the agency, but he was rejected because of a simple miscommunication. 

Of course, interviews get blown for reasons which could have been controlled.  I have heard about interviews blown because a candidate brought coffee without bringing it for the interviewer.  Interviews have been blown because someone answered a cell phone call.  Candidates often screw up an interview because they were unprepared.  All too often, people go on interviews without checking out the agency's website or otherwise doing their homework.  (A candidate at BBDO once talked about loving their MasterCard campaign.  Or the creative candidate who interviewed at JWT and told the interviewer that she wanted to work at a creative agency like Chiat, Mother or BBH, never mentioning JWT.)  These are valid reasons to reject a candidate.  But interviews get blown for reasons which make the process unfair. 

Many interviewers, particularly non-professional interviewers, often make the mistake of  what I call confusing adjectives.  They assume that because someone is quiet that they lack energy.  They assume that because someone is thoughtful in their responses that they are not quick on their feet.  Or because they are soft spoken they are not strong.  I recently had a southern candidate get rejected because of her southern drawl. The interviewer assumed that she was neither forceful nor aggressive because of her southern laid backness.  Ironically, she is one of the most aggressive and persuasive people I know.  Unfortunately, I could not get her another interview.  A very successful creative person was once rejected by a creative director because she did not go to the School of Visual Arts, despite an award winning portfolio.  And because creative people are often hired only because of their “book”, the interview counted for very little.

In the fifties and sixties, many corporations resolved these subjective issues by administering employment tests.  While these are mostly out of favor today, there are actually a few advertising agencies which still use them to determine personality “fit”.  I won’t even bother to comment on the absurdity of this.

 

Perhaps the worst part of failing an interview for reasons which have nothing to do with the job itself is that, especially these days with computerized records, a candidate can be scarred for life depending on the notations made in the company’s computer.  The laid back southern person might be labeled as “meek” by an unthinking interviewer.  Then, next time she is submitted, even if years from now, she might be prevented from interviewing because of the mislabel in her file.

I would like to suggest that this is one time when I actually believe in the committee approach to interviewing.  I am not talking about the nine interviews that the old Chiat/Day used to do. And I am not talking about having any single person on the interviewing committee able to reject a candidate outright.  Rather, there should always be two or three senior people who do the screening of senior people and two or three less senior who might see and evaluate more junior potential employees. After the interviews, the committee should meet, discuss candidates, the available jobs and reach a consensus on appropriateness.  Every manager’s fear is that either the person below him or her or human resources will screen out a very good candidate.  The approach I am suggesting would help insure that good people are not passed over for bad reasons. 

I would love to hear your ideas of how to evaluate potential employees people fairly.