WHEN INTERVIEWERS GO WRONG!
Frequent mistakes committed by interviewers

While job seekers are "usually" keen on properly planning and undergoing a job interview with a potential employer, they are sometimes surprised as to how poorly the meeting was handled by the interviewer.

Why should they be surprised? The person conducting the interview - who is more likely to be the Human Resources Manager, the General Manager or the concerned Department Head - are human beings. Therefore, it is natural to find the good, the bad and the really ugly among them. While HR Managers have no excuse for not being "professionals" if not "experts" in interviewing and recruitment, other senior managers may have never had the opportunity to acquire the required skills to handle interviews and objectively assess job applicants.

Below are some of the "horrors" or "disappointments" some skill-link.com candidates faced in relation to job interviews. One or more may seem too familiar to you:

• The interviewer never showed up to work on the interview day, nobody bothered to contact the candidate to reschedule! Lack of professionalism or even basic human courtesy.

• The interviewer spent less than 5 minutes talking to the candidate. Cannot reach any decision that fast; also show lack of courtesy to the candidate, even if not suitable.

• The interviewer allowed numerous interruptions to the interview (replied to phone calls, allowed other visitors in, or worse even: initiated phone calls!). In one case a candidate complained the General Manager of a Marketing Agency had a cat on her lap and she spend most of the interview time attending to the cat and worrying about it! Lack of professionalism and basic human courtesy.

• Some interviewers enjoy getting into intimate details of the personal life of the candidate. In other countries (specially in North America) that is illegal. It is horrifying to think of interviewers asking a person why he/she is not married until now or why they are divorced or with no children! That reflects more of a sick mind than poor interview skills.

• It also unfortunately happens that male interviewers would openly make advances to young female interviewees! This is an abuse of the fact that the interviewee is usually keen on getting the job…. Such a behavior could only be described as cheap sexual harassment.

While the above events are more "ethical" or behavioral"; the following are more related to the content of the interview:

• In numerous cases, the candidate sense the interviewer (specially if from the HR Department) is not very clear on the job details he/she is interviewing for. Smart candidates, by asking the right questions reach this conclusion quickly and really worry. In some ways this negatively affects the credibility of any thing the interviewer says or does. Such an occurrence is the result of the interviewer not having spent enough time analyzing the vacancy requirements and thoroughly discussing it with the concerned line manager (to whom the position will be reporting).

• Some candidates walk into an interview and find the person starting to read their CV for the first time! Or even worse, asks for a hard copy of the CV from the candidate since he / she cannot locate the copy they had! This obviously reflects very poorly on how well prepared the interviewer is for the meeting taking place. It also waists valuable time, for the interviewer to go through the facts or ask questions that could be easily answered by reading the CV before hand.

• In some less frequent situations, the candidate is told he/she does not meet the qualifications for the job the interviewer is trying to fill. The bad thing is that this would be very obvious from the candidate's CV, and therefore the whole process of bringing him / her for an interview could have been avoided by carefully reviewing his / her CV. Examples of such happenings are numerous: the Chief Accountant of an advertising firm, being rejected for not having strong costing experience in a manufacturing environment… it was so obvious from his CV… so why bring him in? Another case of a Microsoft Certified technical support engineer, who has never claimed on her CV having worked on ERP and ORACLE implementations, why face her with a rejection at the end of the interview for lack of those skills? This is basically, attributed to lack of preparation on behalf of the interviewer.

• In a number of instances, the interviewer considers the interview like a police interrogation, thus it is dedicated to him/her asking questions. They forget that it is both courtesy and sound practice to present an overview about the company, its history, its goals and where it is going. Such an overview about the company is very important to "sell" it as a future "home" for the good candidates. These usually are difficult to attract and could be receiving offers from multiple potential employers. This probably happens when the interviewer has limited training or when he/she is under the false impression that every one will be dying to join their company.

• In relation to the previous issue of describing the company and discussing the potential job opportunity, a number of interviewers tend to paint "rosy pictures". They would thus avoid speaking of the challenges that go with the job, the working hours or the deadlines. They may also over inflate bonus expectations. While part of the interviewer's duty is to attract suitable candidates and "sell" his / her company as an attractive employment place, this should not be at the expense of twisting the facts or hiding key elements that should have been disclosed beforehand. The job seeker's expectations should be objectively managed for him / her to make an informed decision. This is to avoid later disappointment and frustration that could make the employment relationship really short and a bitter experience for both parties involved.

• In a few interviews we have witnessed, the interviewer considers the "interviewee" who does not agree with all his / her views and opinions as too argumentative or a potential "trouble maker"! Which leads them to mentally reject him / her even before the interview is over.

The most common weakness of all interviewers across the board in Egypt and the Arab world is their total lack of communication with the interviewee once the interview is over. It is common sense that not every interview leads to a job offer, however basic courtesy mandates that within a reasonable period of time, the candidate - who bothered to sit for an interview - receives some feedback. Even if it is in the form of a "we still have not made our mind, we will get back to you". It takes two minutes to send an email, make a phone call or write a letter to the candidate, for some reason it is a courtesy often ignored. It is very upsetting that even in the instances where the candidate that was previously interviewed takes the initiative and calls the interviewer two or three weeks later, to check on his / her status, the interviewer refuses to take the call and never returns it!