Ping: Human Resources Types

[sterlingice]

{Name Removed} Corporation utilizes the Behavioral Interviewing technique during the recruitment process. Behavioral Interviewing is designed to drive effective hiring decisions. By focusing on the candidate's past experiences, actions and behaviors, interviewers can learn more accurate factual information about candidates to consider while making hiring decisions.

The Behavioral Interviewing Technique encourages candidates to openly share important information about their skills. You should expect to be asked a series of open-ended, job-related questions about past events and experiences. It's important to share several pertinent examples of work-related projects and experiences. Because your background is important to us, your interviewer will take notes during the conversation.

Give detailed examples of job-related instances that have enhanced your skillset. Please be specific in your examples about names, dates, statistics, locations, processes, challenges and successes. For less experienced candidates, examples of school projects and professional organizations are perfectly acceptable. Your interviewers will ask follow-up questions to understand the significance of your work in these areas.

Now that you understand the interview process, you might wonder what types of questions to expect. Here are a few examples:




Describe a time when you were faced with the challenge of providing courtesy to a customer during a particularly difficult or tense situation.
Describe a situation that illustrates how well you manage multiple projects at the same time.
When have you been most proud of your ability to wait for important information before taking action in solving a problem?
It's fairly easy to read and written in that same English that I learned growing up but I have no idea what it means. This goes back to the giant puzzle that I think HR is where people seem much more looking for a reason to knock you off the pile of resumes rather than put you on the pile. This describes the process but not the implications. Reading between the lines, what are they looking for? These are all pretty smart software engineers- it's not like anyone is going into the meeting talking about that time they were drunk or high or cheated in school or let some other person do all the work on a project. Even more useful, what are common things to trip people up?

SI

[Buzzbee]

Rather than the generic "tell me about yourself" or "why do you think we should hire you" type questions, they ask specific questions about your experience. It isn't anything new or unique.

In a nutshell, they are asking about your job performance. The don't care what your friends think about you or what you say your goals are. They want to hear about specific examples of how you have performed.

For example, if you ask a prospective help desk employee "Tell me three examples of when you have delivered excellent customer service" and they can't name one, then perhaps they aren't very good at going the extra mile for a customer. On the flip side, if they rattle of "well, there was this one time" and "oh, and then another time" then chances are they are probably pretty good at serving a customer.

Likewise, if you ask an interviewee to tell you about three situations where they and another employee were having problems, but were able to work it out, and they ratlle off how much they didn't like this person or that person or this supervisor then you might get an idea that they could be difficult to work with. Or, if they can cite examples of where they were irritated at an employee but after talking to them they realized it was just a misunderstanding and now they are best of friends, then you might surmise the potential employee might be a good team player.

In summary, by asking for specific examples of the desired (or undesired) behavior, you get much further than just the "Ima hard worker. I work and play well with others" that you get in a typical interview.

[dawgfan]

What Buzzbee said. Basically they waste a bunch of time talking about their interview style when all they really need to do is say that they value talking to you about your past work experiences and provide the sample questions listed at the bottom.

Read those questions, come up with good answers, and let those questions guide your thinking in preparing for an interview with them. Know that they want to know what you are like in a work environment - how do you deal with conflict, how do you deal with difficult work circumstances, are you a problem-solver, do you go the extra mile, etc. They want to hear examples that prove these things.

It's a more effective way of interviewing people and finding the right people for the job. Just focusing on a resume proves little - you need to get some idea ahead of time what a person will be like to work with, not just what their experience is.

[MikeVick7]

I'm in HR but couldn't help you here, but if you have a FMLA question just let me know. :)

[Raven Hawk]

Buzzbee and dawgfan have a good handle on it. However, behavioral interviewing has evolved a little from the initial "I want examples of your behavior" stages. It has more recently progressed into a results based interviewing technique where the HR person is looking for three specific things with every question that they ask you:

1. Situation - What is the problem or situation that you were in?
2. Recourse - What did you do in that situation?
3. Results - What were the results of your solution?

The reason that HR employs tools like this is for specific and measurable comparison. With specific and measurable comparison, you can defend allegations made by the EEOC of improper or discriminitory hiring practices. If a manager wants to hire White employee "A" over Black employee "B," you better have evidence that white employee "A" is a more qualified candidate or you're going to court. A specific and measurable process allows you to do that.

Also, what many people forget is that, although we sometimes pretend that we know everything, more than likely we know very little about what you're interviewing for, technical recruiters may be the specific exception. HR people usually aren't looking for the down and dirty of what systems and languages you know. We are more interested in these questions:

1. Does the person produce results?
2. Can they talk intelligently about their job?
3. Will the person fit in with the culture of the organization?

Most people have had jobs that they wish they didn't take. They find out early in that the picture that the recruiter painted is a deceptive one. The modern movement is to get away from trying to 'sell' the company as a recruiter, but instead to paint a realistic picture of what working at the company will be like. The recruiter, then has to figure if that person can work in that type of environment. The HR person is qualifying you to work for the organization. Your resume will already say whether or not you have the skills. The hiring manager then has the responsibility to validate those skills if you make it that far.

[sterlingice]

Cool- that's pretty helpful, tho if you guys could expound on this paragraph, that'd be really helpful:
Likewise, if you ask an interviewee to tell you about three situations where they and another employee were having problems, but were able to work it out, and they ratlle off how much they didn't like this person or that person or this supervisor then you might get an idea that they could be difficult to work with. Or, if they can cite examples of where they were irritated at an employee but after talking to them they realized it was just a misunderstanding and now they are best of friends, then you might surmise the potential employee might be a good team player. Again, I get the process but I want the thinking behind the process and not in generic terms. For instance, I like the "multiple examples of having problems" thing. It makes sense but in the middle of an interview, your mind is racing on other things and you don't have a lot of time to analyze so I want to get the crib sheet beforehand. For instance, where does the "how you dealt with a problem" question fall from being a strength into a weakness? Again, something a bit more subtle than "I couldn't finish a project so I got myself plastered and felt better".

SI

[Buzzbee]

Again, I get the process but I want the thinking behind the process and not in generic terms. For instance, I like the "multiple examples of having problems" thing. It makes sense but in the middle of an interview, your mind is racing on other things and you don't have a lot of time to analyze so I want to get the crib sheet beforehand. For instance, where does the "how you dealt with a problem" question fall from being a strength into a weakness? Again, something a bit more subtle than "I couldn't finish a project so I got myself plastered and felt better".

SI
In regard to being able to identify when what you percieve to be a strength is actually what they percieve to be a weakness, chances are you probably won't be able to. For example, you might think that coming up with an idea for a project and pushing for it to be incorporated shows creativity, confidence and conviction. A potential employer might see it as being rebellious, head-strong, and not willing to work with the team.

I wouldn't worry too much about it. There will likely be several ways an interviewer can interpret things, and a lot of that interpretation will be influenced by their general impression of you. If you are nervous and act like you are trying to hide stuff, they'll look for the negative aspects of your response. If you are honest, thoughtful, and confident in your answers chances are an interviewer will look for the postives in your response.

[Raven Hawk]

If you can't adequately explain the results of the situation, it didn't happen.

If you use qualifiers like "I would do this" or "I would do that," you really haven't done anything worth mentioning in that arena; instead you should say "I have done this" and "I have done that."

If you can't explain the reason for why you did what you did, either somebody else did it, or you were told to do it and weren't the initiator.

The rule of thumb is be as specific as you can and you'll fly by the HR person. ;)

[sterlingice]

Very helpful, RH. Time to get on the thinking cap- it's been quite a while since I've done some of these things and minor details fall out of my mind pretty much as soon as it happens. So I'm going to have to read up on my old work and really remember or at least get plausable stories for some of this.

SI

[dawgfan]

Again, I get the process but I want the thinking behind the process and not in generic terms. For instance, I like the "multiple examples of having problems" thing. It makes sense but in the middle of an interview, your mind is racing on other things and you don't have a lot of time to analyze so I want to get the crib sheet beforehand. For instance, where does the "how you dealt with a problem" question fall from being a strength into a weakness? Again, something a bit more subtle than "I couldn't finish a project so I got myself plastered and felt better".

SI

Getting plastered might be an honest example and response, but it's not what the employer is looking for more than likely.

Think of it this way - employers don't usually have the luxury of hiring people on a "trial" basis to see how they peform. If they do, great - they get first-hand experience to judge whether the person is a good fit for the position. When they don't though, they want to do what they can to figure out whether someone is actually going to be a good, productive employee or if their resume is hiding the fact that they are a difficult, lazy or otherwise flawed candidate.

What they're asking for is for you to think of ways to give concrete examples of how you've been an asset to a company or school project. Were there times when you had a difficult challenge facing you in some form or fashion, and if so how did you overcome that challenge. It's not necessarily a bad thing if in one of those circumstances you couldn't overcome every challenge successfully or if you approached something the wrong way, if you can demonstrate how that experience led you to change your approach and learn from your failure.

Think of times when you might've had a conflict with a fellow project member or employee; were you able to figure out a way to overcome that conflict? Employers will want examples showing that you are someone that can work through such a problem in a rational way.

Employers know that issues happen on the job - there will be employees that don't like each other, there will be difficult projects and times of stress. That's pretty much a given. What they want to know is if you're someone that can overcome those obstacles and be a good team player, or if you're liable to get sidetracked by problems with fellow employees or stumped by a difficult problem.

Look carefully at those questions again and see if you can find examples in your work and/or school history that demonstrate positive results to the questions they are asking. Do your homework before the interview - think of these kinds of situations knowing they're likely to ask questions in this vein so you'll feel more prepared and not blindsided.

Personally, I'm not sure I quite follow the last of the 3 sample questions they pose. What I would do if they asked me that question is say "I'm not quite sure I'm understanding the question - can you clarify it for me?"

What this all boils down to is employers want to know more than "Is this person technically qualified to handle this position" - just being technically qualified doesn't mean that someone will make a good fit for the position. If you have to work within a team or a particular framework, they need some evidence showing that you will be effective in that team and framework. Can you handle the stress that is inherent in the job, can you get along with other employees, can you overcome obstacles - these are things they're looking for, and these questions are designed to allow you to prove your case by citing previous examples of doing so.

[dawgfan]

Dola -

Also keep in mind that not every job is right for every person. Be as honest as you can be and if they don't think you're a good fit, they're probably doing you a favor. It's a lose-lose situation when someone is in the wrong job at the wrong company.

[sterlingice]

Getting plastered might be an honest example and response, but it's not what the employer is looking for more than likely.
Thanks again for the great responses.

The point of the above was to say obviously no one goes in and says something like that (I'm a bit of a tea-totaler so that doesn't apply to me but it was an obvious example I thought of) so I need some info that's more about the subtleties of the interview. But the idea was there: things that those of us lowly programmers might think of as good honest examples whereas HR will look at it as a giant black mark.

SI

[dawgfan]

Thanks again for the great responses.

But the idea was there: things that those of us lowly programmers might think of as good honest examples whereas HR will look at it as a giant black mark.

SI

I guess the best response is think ahead of time about these kinds of questions and determine the best responses you can pull from your experience, and be honest about them (though don't be overly modest). Don't worry so much about whether it's the exact response you think they want from you - if it's the right response for them, then it's probably the right job for you. If it isn't the right response for them, then it probably isn't the right job for you.

Too many people get in a mindset of "I need a job, I'm going to do what I can to make them like me." To a certain extent that's OK, but not every job is right for every job prospect, even if you're technically qualified.

If you're not the right fit for a job it doesn't really do either you or the company any good, because eventually you'll probably have to leave, so don't bother wasting your time in the first place.

[sterlingice]

Yeah, the thing about that is at this point, in my mind, any programming job is right for me, provided I don't get thrown in and drown, which doesn't sound at all the case. Even the worst programming job out there (within reason- it's not like they are programming machines to kill kittens or work 100 hours a week) is better than the alternative.

Not that this is the case here, but even in the worst "real" job, I'm going to work a good 6 months or more for no other reason than that's going to look infinitely better than 6 more months of crappy temp work and it gives me something to build off of to find a better opportunity. Considering that in 10 months, I've only found a handful of "real" opportunities that will even give me a shot, it's not like I'm walking into interviews left and right and can choose the perfect fit.

So, in short, under normal circumstances, I'd very much care about the "right fit" issue but currently our (mine and the company's) standards of "right fit" differ tho probably not as much as I imagine as they're looking for 45 new software engineers in the next few weeks. But at the entry level, where there are seemingly no jobs in this field, I don't care how perfect of a fit I am, I'll make myself a good enough fit. And I don't really want to be tripped up by an interview that fails to measure this quality.

EDIT: I'm sure this isn't at all what an HR person would want to hear as it makes their job more difficult. Heck, it's what makes the entire process more difficult- people not being 100% honest about things. I hate that jobs looking for 6 months of programming experience feel the need to write "2 years" because it's "part of the job search process" that people are expected to lie. I hate that I know in many jobs I've interviewed, I've seen the people I'm up against and talked to them and I know I'm better than but I don't completely lie my ass off to get a job.

Similarly, the process is so frustratingly opaque: "we don't really want to tell you what we're looking for- just tell the truth" like in the interview description and in the above. Does it make your job easier, yes (perhaps, more below)? But if I follow that advice and am 100% honest instead of "job interview" honest, I screw myself over. Why in the world should I follow that advice when it completely works against my interests and has inherent flaws (also, see below). It's the classic "do what I say, not what I do" scenario.

But, by the same token, while it makes your job easier, it makes it easier for those people who have read interview books or have friends on a message board in HR (*cough*) able to cheat their way around the system so it's not really about the right person for the right job, it's back to the high school English teacher mentality of "tell me what I want to hear". I know I've already lost at least a couple of job chances because someone else lied their ass off to get the job and I'm not willing to go down to that level but I would like at least a somewhat more level playing field- I want to know what I'm dealing with so I don't have to boldfaced lie my way through it. If I wanted to lie or sell myself, I'd be in sales.

SI

[sterlingice]

Bump for anyone with any last minute thoughts.

SI

[sterlingice]

Also, thanks a ton again to Buzzbee, dawgfan, and Raven Hawk. Your advice was a ton of help in preparing this weekend.

SI

[dawgfan]

Good luck!

[sterlingice]

Thanks :)

I'm off to a lovely start as my thumb drive died tonight when I was trying to load some presentation material onto it. Then again, better to die now when I know to make a CD copy and backup than when I'm trying to show it.

SI

[kingnebwsu]

Good luck man. I do hiring for a retail company and what I do is look for someone who's a good fit. It's like, yes...you're successful in certain things, but will it translate to the job here? I know your situation is different, but just be honest and be able to give specific examples on any question asked. Even if it's not a specific example directly related to the question, give a specific example of a similar situation. As an interviewer, I know it's hard to come up with answers to everything on the spot, but I'm looking for the potential employee to demonstrate skills that would be helpful to my company and also being able to think "on your feet" (an important part of my job).

Good luck and stuff :)

[st.cronin]

I would never be anything less than completely honest on a job interview, just because I wouldn't want to work with anybody who was less than completely honest.

[sterlingice]

I would never be anything less than completely honest on a job interview, just because I wouldn't want to work with anybody who was less than completely honest.
Same here- I'm not telling lies but I can't imagine you tell prospective employers about every bad thing that ever happened to you. You still put your best stories and anecdoes in an interview. When someone asks you about a time you had problems with a teacher, you can tell them about the time where you just completely blew off that class and just did enough to get a B or you can come up with the time where you were challenged and overcame some sort of adversity and got an A. Both answer the question, but obviously the second is the one you want to use in an interview.

Never mind that I know in talking to other candidates after interviews that there are a lot of people out there who have no compunctions about lying, it makes it that much more important to put your best foot forward to compete against these people.

SI

[sterlingice]

Ok, update- at least a brief one. What's worse than going to a job interview? How about getting into an accident on the way to a job interview? I swear, I'm cursed.

I'm about half an hour early and maybe 5 minutes from the place- perfect timing, not too early but "interview early". It had been raining all day in KC but hadn't rained for quite a while so the roads were really slick. I'm coming to a spot where I-35 had just exited off a bunch of lanes so it's down to one and I'm in it. The road turns so I'm slowing down into the curve and starting to turn when my car drifts hard on the water and before I even know what's going on, my car had hopped over a median on my right into one of the lanes that had just exited. I manage to get it out of the way of the exiting traffic (which thankfully there was none at that exact moment) and, in the rain, in a suit, get to walk a couple of blocks to find a phone, call AAA, my interviewer, and State Farm.

Thankfully, I'm fine. No one else was involved or anything, but my poor Grand Am is now being serviced in Kansas City (3 busted tires and rims... and one perfectly intact one with some suspension damage to boot) while I've got a rental car. I know my car, as it's fairly light, has a tendency to drift on turns like that but I also know how to make it not do it (ie slowing down as you're supposed to) and that's what has me freaked out is that I slowed down to 45 as was posted but the wet road made it too slick even for that.

Never been in an accident like this before but it was so quick, I didn't even have time to be scared or anything. I had one other accident on my record and it was after the Great Ice Storm of Ought-Two. Anyone in this area remembers it. Most winter storms drop some rain then some ice then snow or just snow. No, it sleeted for over 48 hours straight. For two days, it dropped ice out of the sky non-stop: no snow, no rain, just ice. Everything was caked. Two days after that, as things were still thawing, I had one of those "sloooowly-runnnning-intooooo-someonnnnne" around a turn at 5 mph accidents. But that wasn't at all like this.

You hear the cliche "there are days like this". But I was thinking on the way home- I've never had a day like this. Not this bad. And that, I suppose, is something to really be thankful for, too, because in the grand scheme of things, there are many worse things that can happen in life. The only damage was to the car- I feel fine and thankfully no one else was involved at all. I think being in the suit helped when I walked into a random office in a nearby building and told them I had been in an accident- if I had been in my usual t-shirt and jeans, I'm not sure I'd have been so warmly helped. But they were really helpful, AAA was quick and dispatched a tow truck, and State Farm was set up so that everything is practically one mouse click handled at both the Pontiac dealership fixing it and Enterprise for renting a car. I was towed, car in shop, and with a rental Taurus for $5 a day (State Farm has this thing where they cover 80% of your rental costs in an accident) in about 2 hours. Headed, back up to where I was interviewing, turned in some paperwork and got rescheduled for Thursday.

Guess I now have an "icebreaker" story to tell where, while it doesn't answer any questions, it eats up a few minutes of interview time and is a low-risk story where I can get warmed up and is fairly interesting. Not the way I really wanted to get it, tho.

EDIT: Hm... doesn't seem so brief of an update...

SI

[JAG]

Glad to hear you're ok SI. Good luck with the interview.

[Buzzbee]

I'm not hiring you. You are a liar.

"Ok, update- at least a brief one."

[sterlingice]

Well, the good news is that I made it just fine to the interview today and that it's over. The bad news is that now the waiting begins. The even worse news is that my car was declared dead so I have to replace it. Thread about this coming shortly.

SI

[dawgfan]

Well, the good news is that I made it just fine to the interview today and that it's over. The bad news is that now the waiting begins. The even worse news is that my car was declared dead so I have to replace it. Thread about this coming shortly.

SI

How'd the interview go?

[sterlingice]

Well, I've gotten to the point with interviews where I've come to the terms that I just don't know any more. I don't think it was particularly good, but with all that's happened this week, my mind has been a bit fuzzy.

Walked through the technical interview part- fell a little short (partial credit type answers) on two questions out of about 15 asked. But the rest was brutal- toughest interview process I've been in. Not only was it behavioral but basically, had 3 people for 45 minutes each so three different approaches and had to juggle what stories you told what people but be careful not to repeat the same story too many times for different questions.

SI

[dawgfan]

Heh, count yourself lucky it was only 3 people for 45 minutes each - at Microsoft you interview basically all day - an early morning visit with the HR specialist, then around 6-7 50 minute interviews with different employees in the team you'd be working with. It's b-r-u-t-a-l. The only thing that saved me was I'd been working there already as a contractor for 1.75 years, so they all pretty much knew me and what I could do. I can't imagine going through that as an outsider...

[sterlingice]

Yeah, but Microsoft is kindof top dog. They can afford to do that and be very selective. Intel's the same way from what I've heard. They have like 4 or 5 interviews.

SI

[terpkristin]

Heh, count yourself lucky it was only 3 people for 45 minutes each - at Microsoft you interview basically all day - an early morning visit with the HR specialist, then around 6-7 50 minute interviews with different employees in the team you'd be working with. It's b-r-u-t-a-l. The only thing that saved me was I'd been working there already as a contractor for 1.75 years, so they all pretty much knew me and what I could do. I can't imagine going through that as an outsider...
This is similar to how it was for me interviewing at Orbital (where I work) and Booz Allen, though I'm in the aerospace industry (not computer/software eng).

It can make for a very long day, but the most stressful part for me is always if they take me out to lunch. I mean, interviewing is one thing, but then when they want to take you to lunch, there's even more peformance anxiety, or at least, another situation where you can potentially make an idiot of yourself. For example, eating too quickly I've heard can be marked against you (don't know why, guess it's a politeness thing), and then there's always the possibility of making a mess accidentally (hey, you're in your good interview clothes that are dry clean only, OF COURSE you'd spill spaghetti sauce on yourself, even if you've never done it before), or other silly things going on. Plus, for lunch interviews, you want to be able to ask questions and answer questions, which doesn't always leave much time for YOU to actually eat!

Either way, hopefully you'll get some good news soon, SI, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you. Hey, at least you've now got the experience of having gone through one of these "more grueling" interviews, so if you have to do another, you'll be better prepared.

/tk

[sterlingice]

Heard back from the recruiter today that I didn't get the job. Something about being a good candidate but that I didn't match up with the languages they were looking for and pool of applicants. I don't know- once you hear pertinent information of that magnitude, the mindless platitudes and recycled speech kindof fall on deaf ears. I've started to realize "it's not you, it's us" usually does translate to "it's you" but without the ranting girlfriend (never had that happen in that aspect of my life) to tell you how you're an awful candidate, it's tough to know what to change next time out. I've tried contacting the interviewers for feedback on my interviews as suggested by multiple threads on this board and I rarely hear back.

This one hurts quite a bit more than the others just on the grounds that not only did I lose my car for nothing and I now have no good way to pay for a new one short of the insurance check that may or (more likely) may not get me something reliable. That sucks and throws another brick on the load of the crappy financial situation that I'm in. But also they had 45 spots and brought 100 people max. I saw 2 days of 25ish people (the Monday I was supposed to be there and the Thursday when I actually interviewed) and a schedule to bring in another set in a couple of weeks like that. Previous interviews, it was 1 in 4 at best or 1 in 10 or more- those are long odds. But this was about a 50/50 shot and still came up empty.

A huge thanks again to everyone who helped both in this thread and at other times (Todd, tk, others - you know who you are). I really felt confident and well prepared going in, even with everything that happened and I know that's in no small part to the help I received here.

I feel like I should start walking the street with a "will code for food" sign at this point. Anyone who knows anyone in KC, Topeka, Lawrence or surrounding environs looking for entry level Java or C++ coders or pretty much anything computer related, drop me a PM or instant message. I'm really hesitant to take something else that is isn't temporary as, at this point, one of the first questions asked is "What have you been doing to keep up your skills" and while I have some good answers now and I'm still less than a year removed from school, if I take a job where I work 50-60 hours a week and have no brain power to work on side projects, my time in school will pretty much be wasted. By that same token, if anyone has any future advice, I'm always listening.

SI

[dawgfan]

Heard back from the recruiter today that I didn't get the job. Something about being a good candidate but that I didn't match up with the languages they were looking for and pool of applicants.

Just out of curiosity, did you get this impression from the any part of the interview process? I'm not particularly fluent in programming languages, but I would've thought this kind of line of reasoning would be pretty easy to gauge by your resume and by basic lines of questioning early in the interview process. In other words, if they were looking for someone highly proficient in (hypothetical example here) C++ and that wasn't your strong suit, wouldn't that have been a red flag from the start?

I guess what I'm getting at is, does this explanation jibe with your experience of the interview process? This would obviously tell you a lot about whether it was a legit concern on their part or whether they're bullshitting you.

[finketr]

si, have you looked at sprint.com for job openings? their headdquarters is in overland park, ks, iirc.

also, you might consider my former employers:

www.bradfordandgalt.com

[sterlingice]

I guess what I'm getting at is, does this explanation jibe with your experience of the interview process? This would obviously tell you a lot about whether it was a legit concern on their part or whether they're bullshitting you.
Consider that there was an interviewer flaunting how vague the system was and proceeding to "make me comfortable" by saying about how they get 100K applications a year and how I wouldn't be here if I wasn't a good candidate. Not only that, but my languages and skills are right on my resume and fairly detailed as I don't have a lot of job history to "take up space". And, never mind the open house where they went around and did 5 or 6 (I lost track) quick fire interviews where two of the questions asked by every single person was "what languages are you proficient in" and "describe your biggest/couple biggest projects and what languages" yet still got asked back for an interview after that... well, I think I have a pretty sound basis to call shenanigans on this explanation.

I'm in the process of wording the second follow up (sent the thank you last week, now for the "what went wrong" one) to the recruiter to try and see if I can get something out of him but I rarely get feedback. Maybe this time will be different.

EDIT: And, for the first time ever, I was actually contacted by the recruiter and not vice versa based on what I had posted to Monster- again, it seems like that's just the rehearsed speech

SI

[dawgfan]

Yeah, sounds like a BS explanation. If you can word your 2nd follow-up in such a way as to emphasize that it would really help you out to know what exactly were the reasons for them passing you over and that you hold no grudges, that'd be a nice silver lining from the whole process.

[Glengoyne]

Regarding the Behavioral Interviewing.

Our new Operatins Chief wanted to implement a behavioral interviewing process, and I was the first guy to bring in a candidate for interview. The candidate had incredibly well matched skills and experience, but the Operations guy wanted to do a full tech interview with IT staff and a full Behavioral interview with non-IT staff. So this guy got two panel interviews with a catered in lunch with the whole IT team in the middle. The primary interviewer in the second interview was an HR consultant, and she ran through her drill of prepared questions..pushing hard if he didn't give her an answer that pleased her. Once I saw what she was doing, I understood that to her, behavioral interviewing was about making the candidate feel uncomfortable with his/her situation. I thought the guy handled it perfectly. When the candidate left she was amazed at how "hostile" he became when she pressed him on a couple of answers. What she interpreted at hostility, I correctly interpreted as the guy's confidence in his own abillities. I told the HR person and the Ops chief that the next time someone in another department goes through this process, that I wanted to be in the room to poke their candidates with a sharp stick like my fellow managers had done to my guy.

[sterlingice]

Yeah, I'm thinking what RH said is pretty accurate where it's basically an EOE CYA tool. It's as much if not more about weeding out the people who don't quite "gel" with you than it is about qualifications.

SI

[Raven Hawk]

Typically qualifications get you an interview, personality gets you a job with this kind of technique.

I have seen some of what Glengoyne described in his post. Some HR people really don't "get" interviewing. The think that it's their job to weed-out bad candidates, when technically they should weed-in good candidates. Recruiting specialists understand this better, but I've seen my share of HR Generalists who couldn't interview their way out of a paper bag.

As for the job, SI, sorry to hear that you didn't get a call back. But one thing to remember is that sometimes a company will make the right decision for you. I'm not sure if I've shared this joke on this forum before, but it is one that I tell quite often.

A guy dies and is standing before St. Peter's Gate. St. Peter says to the man, "Well, we're getting a little crowded in heaven, so I've decided to offer you a choice. You can go to heaven or you can go to hell." Well, the guy thinks that this is an easy choice and say, "Ummm, I'll take heaven. Thanks." But St. Peter insists that he at least take a tour of both before he makes up his mind. Unconvinced that this will change his mind, the gentleman accepts St. Peter's offer to tour heaven and hell. First they go to heaven where the man see angels sitting on clouds, playing harps and generally relaxing. He says to St. Peter, "That looks pretty good, I could see myself spending eternity here." St. Peter replies, alright, but at least take a look at hell before you make a final decision. The man agrees again and St. Peter takes him off to hell. When he gets there, he sees a bunch of his friends drinking, playing golf and generally having a good time. "Wow!" he says to Peter, "I never thought that I'd say this, but hell looks like a fun place. I think I'll stay here." St. Peter says, "As you wish," and leaves the man behind to his eternity in hell. As soon as Peter leaves, the devil heads over with a whip and says, "Assume the position." The man, generally surprised says, "What, I thought I was going to play golf? What's up with this?" The devil replies: "Yeah, we were just recruiting you then. Now you're staff . . ."

The moral of the story is that all companies paint a completely different picture when they are recruiting somebody than what they truly are. I had a boss once tell me, before I left his employ, that "The reason the grass is greener on the other side of the fence is because it's fertilized with more shit." ;) I've found that saying to be quite true.

Good luck in your job search. I'll see if I can't dig up a contact or two in the KC area.