Sunday, November 18, 2007

Yahoo Article

This type of interview method where potential employees are judged based on personality rather than credentials definitely has pros and cons. I had an interview this past Spring similar to this where we worked in teams to design games for kids (it was for a job as a camp counselor), and I thought this was a good idea because we would be working with each other all summer. For other jobs, I don't think this is completely necessary. I have a friend who is an absolute computer genius (Computer Engineering major) and can fix anything I manage to screw up on my computer, but he has terrible people and social skills. He is courteous and polite, but he is very shy and I can see him being a wallflower in this type of interview situation. Although he would probably be more capable of performing the job than all of the other candidates, his abilities would probably not shine through as well. So, if a certain job (working with computers, for example) does not require as much people skills, I think this type of interview would be completely unnecessary.

One thing I did like was the company that had all day interviews (9-10 hours long) because they said that "people can't BS for that long." I would do well in that type of situation because I am myself no matter how long I have to be a part of something. There are those people that are completely fake, but it is difficult to weed them out based on a 30 minute interview. An all-day interview (even though it would be a pain, especially if you didn't get the job), is the best way to get rid of those types of people. Another important thing the article said to watch out for was people being picked based on compatible personalities. A group of co-workers may have a blast going out for beer, but they may have terrible quality of work together.

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