Interviewing Inadequacies

Job Seeker's Story

Jennifer found herself in an interview with two people, Margaret and Pierce, for the Contract Negotiator position with Pac-Lat. Pierce took the lead in the interview, rapidly firing questions at her, grunting at her answers, interrupting her, and rolling his eyes. He seemed doubtful and unimpressed with her as a candidate. At the same time, Margaret was warm, shaking her head at Pierce, and telling Jennifer not to worry about it.

Jennifer found herself directing her answers more and more toward Margaret and all but ignoring Pierce's questions. Her irritation with Pierce was quite evident and eventually he sat back to watch as Jennifer opened up to Margaret as if they were old friends, answering each of her questions.

After the interview, Margaret and Pierce discussed Jennifer and decided she was not going to be very successful at handling the stress and pressure of the position because she had done such a poor job in handling the stress brought on by one arrogant and rude interviewer. If she could not handle that, how would she ever handle the critical multi-million-dollar contract negotiations? Because of this, she was not offered the job.

Job Seeker's Stumble

Jennifer was lured into what is referred to as “good cop, bad cop” in the interviewing (and law enforcement) world. This same scenario can be played in a panel interview or with just one rude or harsh interviewer; the idea is that a job seeker should never let the interviewer see him or her sweat or realize that he or she (the interviewer) is getting to him or her. If Jennifer cracks under the pressure of the interview, she certainly demonstrates that it will not take much to upset her in the workplace.

Job Seeker's New Strategy

First, don't be fooled: The nice interviewer is no more your friend then the not-so-nice one. This is a ploy! Do not be tricked into becoming conspiratorial toward the nice one and irritable toward the mean one. Keep your cool, be professional, and answer each one with the same level of professionalism, regardless of how they treat you. Do not let yourself become heated or argumentative with the bad cop, but also do not feel safe in telling the good cop anything he or she asks. Again, the interviewer is not your “friend” but rather someone evaluating you for the job.

If you feel overwhelmed, take a deep breath, and avoid becoming flustered. If questions are being launched at you too quickly, say something along the lines of, “Let's see, I believe you asked me…. I'll address that question before I get to the next.” or “Just a moment. Let me answer his question first.”

As with all interviews with more than one person, before leaving the interview, make sure you learn each person's title and name because you will want to write each of them thank-you letters, no matter how any one of them made you feel.

Now that you have survived the interview you can decide whether a company that would allow this kind of interviewing is a place where you would want to work or not. The individuals involved in the game might be people you would have no interaction with in the future, or they could be representative of the type of organization in which you would work. If you have not done your homework on the company yet, now would be a good time to learn more about them. If the opportunity leads to a second interview, be sure to ask to meet the team with whom you would work and to inquire on what happened to the last person in the role. (Was he or she promoted? Terminated? Relocated?)

Remember: It is an interview, and that is a test in which to prove you can handle stress and challenges.