Interviewing
This will be a quick post, I believe, about my time interviewing potential new employees. The store that I work at has a very low turn over rate, for very good reasons, and we don’t interview often, so every time Viktor and I have to send out a detailed add looking for a new person it is always a challenge to pick the best person who will fit best with our awesome team. I used to use Craig’s list to find candidates, but always ended up only getting just a small handful of responses and having to choose from groups of less than ten made it really hard to be sure this was the person we were looking for. While looking for a new wine purchaser I came across Indeed and though I have used it to seek out better employment I had never thought about posting on their site. I signed the store up and had a good response fairly quickly, and we ended up getting someone shortly after the post went up. I didn’t handle the wine purchaser interviews; the boss was looking for someone very specific and wanted to be the one who controlled this important choice. We recently developed a need for a new stock guy and this time I skipped Craig’s list and went straight to Indeed to post my job add for the position. I got a flood of people the first night and was thinking this will be quick and easy. I posted the job on a Monday and didn’t work again until Sunday: so I just let the applications pile up and didn’t pay any attention to how many responses were coming into my email (applications and responses are the same thing). Sunday came around and when I opened up my indeed profile to see what I had accomplished, I was taken back by the over 200 applications. Now not all of these were great applications, I had to weed out the ones that were out of sate or from towns that were just too far to drive if we needed someone to come right in. The next disqualified were people who wrote all in lower case on their resume, yes that happens. After the lower case resumes were gone I started reading resumes and got rid of all the ones that had text abbreviations instead of using actual words. I was shocked at how many people were not aware that someone would actually be looking at what they had written. Okay so now I am down from over 200 resumes to just over thirty people that I am going to call to come in and give it their best. I could not believe how many people where eliminated just from bad resumes, because there weren’t many people from out of state applying for the position. Now to calling in people: as long as they answered their phone, they got an interview. I did make notes on how the person spoke on the phone and what their interest level sounded like. I did put
x’s on about four people who I knew would not be good for the team. Well only one of the four even showed up for an interview and he didn’t do to hot. I emailed him later to let him know that he would not be getting a job with us and he told me he was happy because we were "all ass holes there". Seeing that made me smile because some how it solidified my feelings, and being called names has never really bothered me since name calling is generally a way of projecting one own insecurities on to others. My interviews were broken down into three days at seven people a day for fifteen minutes each. Viktor generally doesn’t get to see the resumes until I seat the person we are going to interview. I ask them to tell us a little bit about themselves while Viktor looks over their resume. I remember in school hearing this would be the first and most important question you would get in an interview. This question should be answered in a careful manner as to not disclose to mush personal information but plenty of professional details with out sounding narcissistic. Some of the stories and answers were so overwhelming that I actually had anxiety for the person; so much so that I wanted to jump up in the middle of the interview and just tell them no way in hell were they getting a job with use and if they ever wanted a job any where, the should never speak about things that don’t concern work or work ethic. Some of what I heard is as follows.
Tell me a little about yourself.
"Well I had a great weekend. My son in-law just got married and we found out my father in-law has stage three stomach cancer. Do you know how long this is going to take? I’m just wondering. I haven’t had a job since 2008 and I don’t know why. Oh yeah in 2008 my sister died and my mom died and I had a mental break down and didn’t leave the house for a while but I am all better now."
This guy came to the interview in a long sleeve undershirt all high strung and jittery. He rambled on about his family and how hard it has been for him, at this point that I was ready to just get up and walk away. I feel bad for the guy but holy crap; don’t tell people stuff like that. I am a complete stranger and you are telling me that you have had a hard knock life and that you went crazy but would still like a job. If you ever go crazy and get better, don’t tell anyone. That was the worst of the answers I would elaborate more but just writing this little bit makes me want to call the guy and tell him he needs some interview training and maybe some psychological help still.
Other people we asked about criminal history and though they were vague (as I would be) they did hint to their past. I can get past most things as long as it has been a while and you present yourself well.
I was shocked that out of the 21 people we talked to only four were coming back for a second interview. We eliminated people who were not dressed for an interview, asked questions about our security system (yes, someone wanted to know about our camera system during the interview), and people who we and they knew they could not lift a keg of beer (this is a requirement for employment).
I will be glad when this is over and don’t have to worry about listening to people’s terrible lives and job searching. I would love to give them all a job just so they weren’t with out but when it comes down to what is best for the business and the customers; some decisions that seem the hardest are the best for everyone.
Now I am in no way an expert in interviewing people, but if you are reading this and are looking for a job. DONT tell people your business, especially if it is full of negativity. Make sure your resume is written in a manner that would show that you put effort into your work. Dress and groom yourself in a manner that would make your grandmother proud. And please don’t smell bad or ask how long this is going to take.
Michael Trump
Michael Trump 