You are in : Human Resources > Recruitment & Selection

Recruitment interviews

How not to be interviewed for a job

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:38

I absolutely loved your article on "How not to interview a job applicant". Like they say there is always the flip side to the coin. I would like to express my views on this article.

To be quite honest since I have been in HR I have always strived to make sure that the things you mention in your article do not happen.

Not that I'm trying to blow my own horn - but I can honestly say I portrayed thus far a very good of conduct with regards to recruitment processes.

I would like to share my experiences with regards to recruitment with you very briefly. When I set up interviews for candidates, they arrive late or do not even pitch up for interviews.

The applicants even cancel on the day of the interview and ask if I can re-schedule. When the applicants do arrive for the interview, they are not even prepared for the interview, some of them don't even know what the company is all about.

Just last week I had a series of interviews in my company and I can honestly say it was disappointing. To sit for 3 hours in an interview and applicants are not prepared or take chances, it is really upsetting.

When we screen the CV's, they look excellent but when you meet the applicant it's a different story all together.

I had this one candidate who looked like he was on some sort of illegal substance, he was extremely hyper he even made the panel very nervous, based on the way he literally jumped up and down when we interviewed him. At first we thought he was nervous, but then after an hour he should've calmed down.

Another candidate took out a list of benefits that he receives at his company and said that his company is a very prestigious company to work for. We failed to see how that could form part of a benefit.

Having said that, if you had to compare his current company with ours - we a multinational company and the company he is working for - is not. If he had done his homework he would have not bore us with that detail.

What I also find fascinating is when candidates list their qualifications on their CV and when you ask them about it, they say, "it's incomplete" they still have a few subjects outstanding, but when you look at the CV's it's not reflected.

Then the cherry on the cake is when we are recruiting for a particular skill which is scarce to find in the job market and critical to our business, the applicants we interview are arrogant, (I don't want to mention the profession).

I know there is a fine line between arrogance and confidence, but I think I have been in the game long enough to distinguish between the two.

These applicants don't even feel like participating in the interview process, it's almost like why are you asking me these questions when the answers are on my CV.

What I fail to understand is how applicants do not have the basic recruitment ettique, whenever you read any magazine or newspaper, you will always find articles on "how to behave in the interview" or "how to ace the interview".

My question is simply this - why are the applicants not reading these articles that are there for this purpose?

So in conclusion I would like to say - it goes both ways, the applicants and the recruiters need to work on the interview process.

Regards
HR Officer