Interviewing Pet Peeves: A Job Seeker's Perspective

According to HR Executive Online, in a recent study conducted by DDI and Monster Worldwide, two of every three job seekers surveyed reported that their impressions of the people they interviewed with strongly influenced their decision to accept or reject a position. Here are some of the job search candidate's pet peeves:

• an interviewer who acts like he has no time to talk to the candidate
• a hiring authority who withholds information about the position
• an interview conversation that is more like an interrogation
• an interviewer that shows up late for the meeting

Interviewers and hiring authorities are the face of the company to job seekers. Companies that strive to teach hiring managers to engage the job seeker and act as the ombudsman for the firm will win the war for talent. Interviewers need to be authentic and respectful of candidates and they can successfully build rapport with prospects by sticking to performance based and relevant questions and offering feedback to candidates in a timely manner.

As a job seeker, you are interviewing a company as much as they are interviewing you. Pay close attention to the subtle cues of the interviewer. While the actions of one or two people may not represent the company as a whole, they could be indicative of the corporate or department culture and are worth noting.