Sadly, many interviewers lack basic tact in verbal interchange.
It’s critical you and the interviewers you train understand that the instant you make an interviewee feel stupid or mocked or out of place, you might as well just end the entire interview right there. There is no point in continuing, as you’ve almost certainly torpedoed any chance at a positive outcome. At the end of the day, even in the case you are certain you haven’t found a match, your message to a candidate is ever “I just don’t think we have a great fit here” rather than “I think you are an idiot.” You can find assorted useful books on the important topic of professional communications, so this guide won’t go into detail. Instead, here are just a few examples of common, terrible, and easily avoidable mistakes to drive the point home that even a tiny investment in training can go a long way.
Check Your Sarcasm
I answered a technical interview question saying "don't do this and that because you can get bad memory leaks". The guy looks at me, dead serious, and says "Why? Are there good memory leaks?" Sigh. No, brother, there are no good memory leaks. Excuse me. And you have just outed yourself as a jerk to your candidate, which projects badly on you and on your team. -AS, senior software systems engineer
It’s very difficult to translate sarcasm across cultures. Even within a shared culture, people who don’t know each other very well are uneasy with it. It is often taxing to try and discern what is a joke and what isn’t. Our advice is just to avoid it entirely in interviews. Leave your caustic wit in the care of your current co-workers until the interview is over.
Hold Your Tongue
One of the most important skills to develop as an interviewer is the ability to listen. When a candidate is attempting to answer your question or invitation, you should never brusquely cut him off mid-sentence and assert a total change of direction.
Sometimes uncomfortable interviewers that aren’t quite sure how to navigate the discussion are prone to cut in even while a candidate is in the midst of a technically relevant explanation. Perhaps too much detail is being shared. Sometimes it’s just a rude attention-deficit mannerism. Regardless, this mistake can leave a particularly nasty and immediate negative impression with the candidate.
The discussion should be allowed to freely flow and meander naturally. When you cut the candidate off in this way with no good reason, one or more of the following messages is transmitted:
The interviewer is naturally an impatient person that has trouble focusing on other people and listening, and is therefore likely difficult to work with.
The interviewer was poorly prepared, or a bad question was asked, leading to an unanticipated answer, so control of the interview has been lost and regaining it appears daunting. The interviewer has panicked.
The interviewer doesn’t want to be here because his time is too valuable for interviewing and building professional relationships, and he would prefer to compress the process and get back to work.
A certain amount of material must be covered in checklist fashion, time is short, and for unknown reasons the interviewer does not foresee any other opportunity to make up for anything missed right here, right now.
The interviewer has already correctly deduced this is not a good fit. It’s possible the team didn’t do a very good job of screening up front. In any case, he’s indifferent about building a professional relationship with the candidate or appearing rude, and would like to get back to work.
For cases 1 through 3, this probably isn’t the person you want conducting your interviews, and quite frankly if your engineers don’t participate in the interview panels you might start to question whether they should even be on your team. However, priorities and preparedness can be taught and this case may simply be indicative that you as an interviewing team need to get control of your process and train your panel better.
Remember, there is really no reason to be so concerned about a little tangential discussion as in case 4. We have the technology to help you through this. Worst case scenario, email or telephone conversations can easily be arranged some time later to cover anything critical that you feel was missed at first chance. Besides, checklists are a self-defeating interview mechanic. You reveal too much information to the candidate and he can’t be genuine. More on this to follow.
Case 5 may occur if you do not have control of your process or you fail to ensure this candidate would be a good match for you through screening calls, background research, and other preliminary leg work. More training for your interview panel could be needed, or implementing a better process. Suppose the candidate does begin to ramble in a fashion absurdly off-topic, so much so that you are able to quickly determine the person will not make a good addition to your team. So what? That is still no excuse to be rude. You lose nothing significant by allowing the conversation to run its course and parting ways. Or politely let the candidate finish his sentence and explain that you feel this is not going to be a good fit. You only stand to gain by a candidate reporting a positive interview experience to his colleagues regardless of the outcome.
Belittling Buys You Nothing
At the suggestion of the interviewing senior scientist, I was describing a strength of mine that I feel is less common in the industry. He cut in to explain the obvious - that focusing on that too much can theoretically lead to unsatisfactory results. Of course that’s true, as with any skill or strength. It goes without saying that one can have too much of a good thing. It’s also worth pointing out that this extreme worst-case scenario is not really a risk, as I have never witnessed it before to any significant effect. Instead, the common and much bigger problem is not paying any attention to it at all. Hence the reason it merited mention as a strength. His comment seemed almost defensive, and I wondered if it was because this particular strength of mine just happened to be one of his weaknesses. This wouldn’t concern me in the least in terms of being able to have a good working relationship, but maybe it unintentionally poked a sore spot for him. The result of his response was that I felt attacked, and this soured the remainder of the interview for both of us.
When a candidate offers to be transparent with you about what he feels are his strengths or weaknesses, denigration should be strictly off limits. This comes off as defensive at best, could feel patronizing or condescending or intolerant, and may leave the candidate feeling foolish. An interviewer may appear, for example, to be making a case that a perceived strength is no strength at all. It undermines a candidate’s confidence. He will be hesitant to self-identify any strengths or weaknesses at all in future conversations.
You are seeking authenticity from your interviewee (and hopefully showing it in return). Candidates that open up to you about their experiences are being vulnerable, and as an interviewer you are in a position to make them feel pretty stupid if you want to. You have absolutely nothing to gain by doing so. Everything a candidate shares with you should be accepted respectfully, even if you don’t like it. When you introduce negativity, the resulting loss in trust equates to removal of a critical piece from your interview arsenal that will make the mission laid before you more difficult. The fact that interviewers do sometimes come off as patronizing and insulting is part of what makes interviewees nervous. This sets up a more difficult interview for you. No one is suggesting you have to like everything a candidate says, or offer him a job, or that you can’t hold your own opinion, but be careful in how you share it. Don’t be overbearing.
You’d best avoid mocking other interviewees too. Doing that tells a candidate you’ll do the exact same thing to him once he’s out of the room, and you will have completely failed at your most critical job of making the candidate feel comfortable. You lose nothing by being upbeat and positive at all times, but have much to potentially gain.
Comments