Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Jumping Through Hoops: Frustrating Parts of the Interview Process that Seem Pointless

Hello World!  I hope you guys are having a great week.  I can tell you I am!  The great Thompson baby watch has reached single digits.  God willing we will be having a baby boy in eight days!!!  If that weren’t good enough I’m also happy to report that we are experience near record highs in Des Moines and in case you missed it the Iowa Hawkeyes won their first post season basketball game since 2003.  Granted it was the NIT but after this decade of ineptitude, I’ll take anything.  Now on to business…

Before we go any farther, let me start out and tell you that if you are hoping that this will be some diatribe about how companies make people do stupid things to get a job and how wrong it is you should probably look for another blog.  Instead, I’m going to try and put things in perspective so that you can be more successful when looking for a job. Here’s the deal.  When people start interviewing with companies there will invariably come a point where the company will ask you to do something that you think is pointless.  It probably is pointless… to you.  However, it isn’t pointless to the company.  Occasionally, I encounter people that give such negative reactions to these things that they self destruct and end their chance to get the job right then and there.  However, the bigger problem is that people drag their feet on the activity or don’t give their full effort and it reflects poorly on them.  Sometimes it gets in the way of getting hired – sometimes it’s just a speed bump.

Typically, I get the most negative reactions to a couple of steps in the process.  They include:
  • Taking a personality profile
  • Developing a Business Plan
  • Outlining goals
  • Meeting with one last person before an offer
  • Filling out an application before the interview
There are countless more, but really the actual step or activity doesn’t really matter.  It’s just that there is a negative reaction to them.

So… Why do we react negatively to them?  Why do they suck?  There are a couple of reasons candidates perceive them this way:

The Activity Seems Really Elementary
Sometimes companies have very strict HR guidelines that require every person that applies for a job to go through the same process.  Occasionally, people that have a lot of experience or success feel that these things are a waste of their time or beneath them.  It’s mindless busy work and it isn’t fun to do.  I get it and I’m going to put this as delicately as possible.  You probably need to think about getting over yourself if this is the case.  In situations like these you really have three options.  You can suck it up and do the activity, knowing that it could lead to something good for you.  You could ask the company to make a special exception, specifically for you…  You also can choose to walk away and believe me that is your prerogative – if a companies HR practices are insulting to you then you probably should be exploring other companies that have policies that are less offensive.

You’ve Already Done This Three Times… or More!
This is one of the toughest parts of the job process.  During good times I estimate that someone that is actively looking interviews with at least three companies in order to get a job.  With 8% unemployment this number can be as high as eight, ten or twelve.  That means that you’ve probably taken eight Omnia profiles that took four hours apiece and after all of that you still didn’t get the job.  It sucks!  So I’ll ask you this:

Why is this company 13’s fault?  Especially when they want to hire you?

My advice here is to take a deep breath and keep your eye on the prize.  Looking for work is an utterly painful experience that has the ability to make you feel devalued, insignificant and worthless.  Investing a ton of time into a process that may or may not work out is really tiring.  Just hang in there on this one

They Should Already Know Who You Are
So you work in a specific industry and are a known commodity.  And then the company asks for you to produce a resume (gasp) or even worse a business plan!  To make matters worse – they know you personally.  Why on earth would they need this information on paper?  Look -  I truly get how you feel.  Why should you have to create a resume?  I’ll ask you a couple of other questions:
  • Why do you wear a suit to an interview?
  • Why don’t you put elbows on the table?
  • Why do we use words like sir and m’aam?

You do it because the man says so.  Just remember that there are reasons for everything and just because the reasons aren’t important to you doesn’t make them not important.  Also the hiring manager might know you but the President of the company might not and would like to see a resume. 

Personality Profiles are a Stupid and Worthless waste of my Time
I’ll agree with you here.  Every one of these tests is the biggest waste of time in your life… Except for the one that gets you a job.  I totally understand why people fight taking these.  They are long, they make you think about yourself and they are filled with questions that seem to have nothing to do with the position you are applying for.  To make it worse they somehow judge you based on this.  I’ll be honest.  I used to look at these profiles as something that was detrimental to the process.  I was wrong.

Personality profiles, when used correctly, are a very important part of the process and hold a ton of value.  Very few companies use personality profiles solely to accept or decline candidates.  What they do use them for is to look for areas of concern that might need further exploration or to learn how to better manage and develop you as an employee. 

So….Why Should you Keep Jumping Through  the Hoops?
Jumping through these hoops can be a really painful experience.  Even if the intent isn’t there it can feel really demeaning and can be a big blow to the ego.  So why do you do it?  The first reason is because you might learn something about yourself.  When I was in high school I was too smart to do the busy work – I tricked myself into believing that if I didn’t think something held value then I didn’t need to do it.  As I’ve become wiser (please know that this is a relative term,  wiser than I was before – I’m certainly not wise), I’ve come to find that there is value in doing things I  don’t want to do and that sometimes I can even learn from these things.  What if building a resume or taking a personality profile helps you uncover your true calling?  The second reason is pretty simple.  If you are looking for a job why would you limit yourself? What if you passed on the job of a lifetime because of a stupid request?  You’ll never know if you don’t explore it.

That’s all I’ve got for today.  Hopefully I’ll have a post next week.  However, if not I’ll be back to regular posts after the baby arrives.  As always please feel free to leave comments or email me at sthompson@insurance-csg.com


Check out some of my recent articles on the blog here:



















No comments:

Post a Comment