It Could Only Happen In A Recession Or The Curse Of The Interviewer

Mondays are dreadful days.





Once we have basked in the glorious sunshine which God very kindly offered to us over the weekend, we are struck by financial doom and gloom exactly 24 hours later simply because there is an M in the word Monday. Money is the very evil we are all driven by and if it was not bad enough that an ice cream on Worthing sea front now costs a whopping 2 quid for a '99,' we can look forward to waking up the following day with that ever so distinctive sinking feeling (and we are not where near the water.) Yet in high flying, middle management, coffee and damp biscuits weekly, "Management Today," we were woken to the dulcet tones of International Monetary Fund boss, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who has quite promptly told us that the good old, back biting recession is all over and we can stop having night sweats and panic attacks.

Isn't that nice? So, in true Michelle Duffy style, here are my own thoughts on the real recession:

Saving the best questions 'til last

I have, over the last few months become increasingly fascinated with the way human beings have changed themselves during the recession. Not so much in our shopping habits and other financial pastimes but in the way we behave, and it would appear that there employers (and we all are or will be at some stage, so don't knock them just yet) who are determined to carry on regardless of any recession, including, refusing to change their attitude towards potential employees...


Interviewers are going to be my gripe of the day today. There is a rule somewhere that states that if an employer has a temp or such person already doing a job he or she wants to fill permanently, instead of just giving the person already sitting in the hot seat the job, they must or at least, I think they are obliged to advertise the post publicly, despite the fact that the person; no matter who walks through the door, doing the job already is going to get the job.


Does that seem fair to you? No. I didn't think so. Well, at least from the candidates point of view, for them the whole process is a total waste of time.

Or as I recently said on Twitter "Help, I'm an interviewer's list of unfair questions! If I saddle up to this jug of warm water much longer I shall take the job myself..."


So, before us employers offer a jug of warm water and a series of unfair questions, I put this dilemma to you. Would you go to a job interview yourself, even if there was absolutely no chance you actually getting that job because there was someone in the background at the company already doing it? Of course you wouldn't but you would expect a whole host of wanna be employees to trip through the door even so wouldn't you? (I guess the real answer here is that we wouldn't go for a job interview in the first place because we disliked being employees ourselves - that's the reason why we set up our own businesses right?)


Perhaps it would be better if we just didn't say anything at all at a job interview to give the game away. There are two misleading faux par's which employers slip up on at a job interview: (Take note future candidates here,)

• The trick question: Ask the candidate a question they could only possibly know the answer, if they were already working there (chances are they already have someone in mind for the job - the girl/chap who is already doing it, and they are the only ones who could answer this.)


• The Temp Slip: Or just simply stating that someone temping is already doing the job. If you're the candidate, you can pretty much bet that if she/he has gone for an interview too, she/he will be the one who gets the job.

It could only happen in a recession. I have found that many employers are getting tough when it comes to interviewing. They are far more reluctant to dish out the interview letters, and when it comes to the actual interviewing, why waste time getting someone in who is probably right for the job and train them when it would easier to take someone you already employ and who knows the company well enough not to train.

As an employer it makes perfect sense, so don't think this is a dig at the boss. For a candidate, it simply warns them to stay on guard when it comes to interviews and actually planting the job. It certainly is far from easy today than it was to get a job say, three years ago. We are all on our guard - employers and candidates alike. We're are no different from each other...

Until the next time, happy interviewing....

onemum 2009