Re: Strange Interview Practices?

Subject: Re: Strange Interview Practices?
From: Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2001 18:26:10 -0800

Elna Tymes wrote:

>I think there's a difference between trying to convince the interviewer that
you're willing to play the games necessary to be part of the team as a permanent
employee and convincing the interviewer that you have the stuff necessary to do
the job he/she needs done better/faster than any other candidate.

True. But the two games do have some similarities. In both cases, you put on a persona to please the other person, or at least try to say the right things, which was probably what the original poster was getting at.

> One of the reasons I chose to become a contractor many years ago was because I
no longer wanted to play the head games ill-prepared interviewers use when
looking for permanent employees.

You said it. The process is especially wearisome when you know exactly what the interviewer is trying to do and not only know f the theory behind the head games, but understand that they're twenty years out of date and as crazy as a soup sandwich. In this situation, exactly the **worst** thing you can do is prompt the interviewer when they don't get the theory quite right; it shows that you know what what's going on, and that's disturbing to someone who imagines that they're being clever and manipulative. Instead, you have to keep a straight face, and give the right answer. And that's hard for me, partly because I get impatient going through the dogeared script, but mainly because I keep having the perverse temptation to give the wrong answer, just to make the interview less boring. But, as I constantly observe, I don't go about these things the right way.

(Which reminds me of George Macdonald Fraser's "The General Danced At Dawn," in which the protagonist, shortly after World War II, is being tested at officer's school by a psychiatrist. In the word association test, he knows that sane answers are "Freud" for "Father" and "Betty Grable" for "Sex," but ends up scribbling "Father Grable" for "Sex" as he's torn by the same perversity. Watching, the psychiatrist is making gulpingnoises of disbelief).

As a contractor, the process is much cleaner. The interview is more nearly equal. As a result, the head game preliminaries either don't appear or last a much shorter time. As the interviewee, my main concern is to appear professional and reliable, while the interviewer's main concern is whether I seem able to do the job. Maybe the difference is that, as a contractor, I'm more likely to be talking to someone like the CTO, rather than an HR person full of half-digested, stale ideas.

--
Bruce Byfield 604.421.7177 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com

"So watch all you sailors, who spend your leave ashore,
You'll have to get up early to be smarter than a whore,
Your coat and watch will disappear, your hat and boots as well,
'Cause New York girls are tougher than the other side of hell."
- Traditional, "New York Girls (Can You Dance the Polka?)"





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References:
RE: Strange Interview Practices?: From: bryan . westbrook
RE: Strange Interview Practices?: From: Win Day
Re: Strange Interview Practices?: From: Elna Tymes

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