If I Could Be Honest with Applicants
I’m an HR Generalist by day and blogger, well whenever I get the chance. I am not a strong writer, I truly just write from my heart and what I know. I participated in an interesting interview yesterday. We are hiring folks for our Distribution Center; shipping, receiving, putaway and pulling. These positions do not require a great deal of experience but you have to be willing to walk, stand, bend, lift heavy items and do quite a bit of repetitive work. The candidate we were interviewing listed the warehouse as her preference but when we got into the interview she never once talked about the position. She talked about getting into the company and hopefully moving into a role that would best utilize her talents and abilities.
What were her talents and abilities you ask? She had a varied background and her past jobs were in volunteer work, marketing and administrative work. She went on throughout the interview about her marketing experience, was vague about her past roles and responsibilities, her reasons for leaving and her accomplishments. She tried to wow us with large words, and went on about her existing relationship with past clients. I guess I don’t have to say we didn’t hire her. We might have considered her for a marketing position if she had wowed us but her interview didn’t give us what we needed to determine if she was worth pursuing.
I truly wish that I could tell each candidate what they do right and wrong. The thing is I can’t and even when I call them and let them know we are not moving forward they don’t ask. It’s like they don’t care. I’d hate to think that our economy has turned our pool of candidates into a dark, dreary pool. I know there are lots of folks in need of work and a pay check, but it’s still important to consider that you have to be truly interested and passionate about your work.
3
i love getting the perspective from the “other side” of where i sit. more than ever, candidates find themselves uncomfortable pinning down anything solid about themselves. with the numbers being six candidates for every job, so many people are trying to scale their skill sets to encompass many roles…hoping that they can be seen as a great asset but not plugged into one role only.
what if company a is really looking for the color green. but they give the impression that they are looking for green, yellow and blue. any candidate may be afraid to say that blue is the best choice when they think that they can scale to cover at least two of the colors. deep fear, homelessness, bad credit and no healthcare etc is making people anxious. mis-steps are going to increase, rather than decrease over the next year.