Not for me.
Question for those that interview people for jobs.
My son went for his interview today to work Boy Scout summer camp.
I have instilled in him to be early for these type of things. Pretty much 15-30 minutes.
Some dude showed up 3 hours early!
Would this be a turn off or a disqualifies if you were on the interview team?
No. He may have issues getting there. So he made sure he was on time. Considering how many people show up late. I wouldn’t shame someone for being early.
It would be weird if someone came that early. They might encounter other applicants, and we usually try to avoid that.
If I were driving a long distance, I guess that could happen, but if it did, I would likely just locate where I need to go, then wait in the car until it was closer to time.
When I worked, we had to interview a guy for an IT position. My boss was certain that she said we would meet at 8 a.m. At 8…nobody was there. About 10 minutes to 9 they interrupted our meeting to tell us our interviewee showed up. We took him back and I thought the guy was great. My boss didn’t much care for him. One of her final questions was “what time did you think this interview was scheduled for”? He said the email he got said 9. This was pretty astute as he didn’t say “the email you sent”…he said “the email I got”. She said it was 8. And in a ballsy move in an interview, he showed her the email she had sent…it said 9. After he left we talked about him and I said that if he got there at 10 minutes to 9, he was actually early. He got the job and it was a lot of “customer contact” with our users. They loved the guy. I
I would have asked him why he was 3 hours early. Often times the direct method is best.
I agree, but in this case the applicants aren’t competing with each othersince it is working at camp.
My son found it really odd.
Would have been a good question.
In this scenario it could have been due to being dropped off by parent.
That was my thought exactly. When I was interviewing for jobs I always made sure I did not arrive late, which meant that most often I would arrive early. I would wait in the car until shortly before the interview time, then go in and let them know I was there.
In this case it was an interview for a Boy Scout summer camp, so I doubt it would make much of a difference at all. It would be interesting to know why he did show up that early, though.
I am assuming that he was polite when he pointed this out and did not have an in-your-face attitude. I would have done the exact same thing, and I would also have finished by apologizing for any inconvenience this may have caused. Yes, I would have known it was not my error, but it still would show some tact and grace in dealing with it.
If you go to some web sites you can hear horror stories about how some companies can be jerks when it comes to interviews. As a real life example, when I was between jobs many years ago and at a job search club, one member told us how one of her former bosses would deliberately make people wait two hours after the scheduled interview time before he would start. He wanted to see how they reacted to that situation.
He was very polite…he said “the email I got”…NOT “the email YOU sent”. But my boss…being who she is…asked a follow up question - “are you sure about that”. And that’s when he checked his email and showed her his phone.
I hated sitting in on “interviews” since we really couldn’t interview. We had canned questions that we could ask. I deviated a bit and tried to go a little deeper and HR stepped in and reminded me to stick with the question. THAT was a waste of my time. I requested to NOT be a part of the interview process after that.
I can relate. I was never a hiring manager myself, but I sat in on a few interviews where I had the same experience. Afterwards we all huddled where we discussed with my boss what we thought. None of the people whose interviews I sat in on were ever hired, though two people whose interviews I did not sit in on were.
One favorite experience when was there was a younger guy we were interviewing and my co-worker asked him how he would respond if the company had made a decision that he disagreed with. Just about anybody will tell you that the correct answer is that once the decision is made you go with it, and that is especially true in the department I work in. This guy, however, responded by saying that if they didn’t agree with his position that he obviously had not done a good enough job explaining it. We all had a feeling that he was in for a learning experience somewhere down the line.
Another younger guy we interviewed seemed really great. He had spent a lot of time managing his parents’ business and also seemed pretty mature. However, he shot himself in the foot with his follow-up letter. As is the case with many companies, my employer had multiple interviews with different people. Apparently this person did not realize that when you have this format you are apt to get some questions repeated in different sessions, since he made a comment about how they wasted his time making him answer the same thing multiple times. I didn’t see what he actually said and only heard it second-hand, but apparently he made enough of a bad impression on somebody. I personally would not have held that against him as a reason not to hire him, but then again, I was not the hiring authority either.
“We had canned questions that we could ask. I deviated a bit and tried to go a little deeper and HR stepped in and reminded me to stick with the question. THAT was a waste of my time.”
I hate that too. One of the most frustrating things about canned questions is it is harder to truly review that someone was honest on their resume.
A lot of people put expert on our job applications and/or their resume but they are truly only an expert on something where they trained another person on it or otherwise can demonstrate being an expert. I think integrity matters more than getting a particular job but I definitely think there are people who rather get the job than find a good quality fit
By figuring out how someone may have trained someone in something you may get someone who can give a great explanation but truly not understand how the product actually works
Asking good questions as the candidate can definitely help from picking a poor working or even toxic environment. It can also show you truly know the job and the expectations for a good quality fit.
No way. It was the company employee’s screw-up, not the interviewee’s.
He starts apologizing for shit that is not his fault from day 1, and that is an invitation for others to walk all over him in the future.
You can be tactful and graceful without accepting responsibility for someone else’s error.
Back in the 80’s I had a “team interview” when I was applying at EDS. it was almost conversational the way it worked. Nobody had a list of questions. It also allowed ME (and would allow any candidate) to ask questions of their own to get a feel if the job is right for them.
Again in the 80’s I was interviewing with a division of International Paler here in KC. The guy who would become the best boss I i ever had wanted to see technical skills. So he asked a few questions, then gave me the record layout for some files and wanted me to write a quick report to list transactions for specific items. That was pretty easy for me and before he walked out of the room I asked “any particular way you want it sorted?” He smiled…I finished the report pretty quickly. I got the job.
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When I worked with addicts I used to facilitate an employment class. And as a Boy Scout leader I sit on a lot of advancement boards.
A piece of advice I always give is to be prepared with one or two relevant questions for the person or persons interviewing you. It shows you actually have an interest in the company and aren’t just looking for a job.
My kid is now an RN. While they prefer a BSN, she only has an associates. She was working as a CNA at St Lukes in Kansas. She requested to be allowed to float to all areas of the hospital, and she took steps to be able to work in Missouri so she could float to St Lukes on the Plaza. Her first night was in the cardiovasular ICU and she absolutely loved it. She worked overnight, but when her shift ended, she sought out the nurse manager to see if she could be placed there full time instead of floating. They talked for over an hour. During that hour, she basically told them “this is where I want to work”. And “this is where I belong”. That manager made her a nurse intern. When the RN position opened up in October, she applied, even though she didn’t graduate until December. She interviewed with HR and then with the nurse manager (her boss). She was nervous because she just finished a shift and felt she didn’t look as good as she should and the was a little tired. Her boss smiled and said “do you really think I’m going to ask you a lot of questions. I only have one - do you want this job”. For 2022, she will work on her BSN - and the hospital will pay for most of it. But I guess the gist of what I am saying is that…as an applicant…SHOW that you want the job. don’t wait for someone to ask “why do you want to work here”…Instead, show a big interest and TELL them you want to work there.
I would have said that I was sorry for any inconvenience this caused, not for any inconvenience I caused.
Saying you are sorry is going to be interpreted by many as ownership of the problem. They’ll hear the “sorry” part and will not read into what you meant by “this” and will not notice that you omitted the word “I.” The overall thrust of a statement is what gets noticed, not extreme finesse/detail like what you are talking about.
It doesn’t make sense for you to be sorry that they confused themselves with their own incompetence. A gentle smile is all that is needed to show some tact in this scenario.
More broadly, apologizing will be interpreted (even subconsciously) as weakness. Not by everyone, but certainly by enough people that you would want to avoid doing this. Job places are generally competitive environments, and you want to avoid signaling beta status, especially when you are new.
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