Working Thoughts

I’m the type of person who relies on metaphors and analogies. It’s just the way I absorb information. So as the sun shone on my face this past weekend, I couldn’t resist comparing the first warm up of the season to the optimism of a reborn employment market. Just like Chance the gardener said in Being There “In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.”

With hiring thawing out, the inevitable uptick in interviews will commence and we’ll see more media stories about the topic. For instance, over to HBR.org Priscilla Claman has a great blog entry called The Worst Interview Question (and How to Answer It). The focus of the writing is on the question:

The question from an interviewer standpoint is intended to show how the interviewee handles uncomfortable interactions. If an interviewee has prepared well, then it’s hard to gauge whether the interviewee can perform when unknown circumstances come up, which is bound to happen in the workplace. This type of awkwardness can paint the picture of how this person would react.

But as noted in the blog article, there’s downsides to the question. The first is that it can be embarrassing. And starting off a relationship with embarrassment is not usually a good idea. There’s lots of movies like this. The second is that strengths and weaknesses change depending on the culture and function the person is involved with. For instance, I love analogies is that a weakness? It depends. Because of this grey area interviewees create work around answers like “I’m a workaholic” so they don’t paint themselves into a corner.

However, as the blog states, there are a few good ways to reply. Check
out the cheesy xtranormal video I created this weekend while messing
around for an example.

 

 

http://www.xtranormal.com/site_media/players/jw_player_v54/player.swf