Interviews! For those who are on the search for the perfect job or those who have just landed a job recently, you would identify with the intrigues that play themselves out in interviews. Having attended a couple and memories of anxiety and anticipation still color the back of your mind like it was yesterday. In a number of interviews you find that you have done greatly – portraying confidence, eloquence, poise, intellect, maturity and technical capacity. Of course others have gone dismally. Funny enough, in most interviews that have gone well, a number of candidates find themselves never getting a positive response. This can make one feeling as if the interview was a fallacy because everything went well! So why did you not come out as the best? On the other hand, you find yourself being offered the job where you personally have felt the interview did not go well? So what is the criterion?
Sitting on the other side of the table, things are different for the interviewer. They have to balance the organizations expectations with their personal biases; a task which is neither easy nor interesting. The candidate they like most – especially those who interest you with their mastery of the language and grasp of issues may not really be the person for the job. Interviewers must also be careful and look out for rehearsed phrases.
But then again, there lies the challenge. How do you decide between a candidate who has done their homework and is up to date with the ‘likely questions’ and another who has not performed well in selling themselves but after probing (and scrutinizing their papers) you find that therein lies a gem waiting to be unearthed. Is that the task of the interviewer?
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