Train the employers first, then the employees
As an interviewee and employee for about 12 years I have learned a lot on employers expectations. My most painfully disappointing conclusion is their, more than often, lack of engaging with their employees, from the application phase to the final employment.
We all know, over and over, how to be successful in interviews. Articles, books and seminars are devoted to train us how to be the perfect employee. We all spend hours and hours to fill applications and write cover letters for sending them in the ‘Unknown’. Yes, that it what we actually do, since a lot of the time we never receive a reply. Sometimes, just for fun, I send over and over emails asking for a respond. Quest what? No reply! If you are luck enough and you do, the rejection letter is nameless with the typical begining phrase ‘Dear sir/madam’. So I have spend hours for applying and you are incapable to add my name!
You just want to lottery and you are called for an interview! Congratulations. You are my hero. And now the rehearsal of the potential job starts. A millions things to consider! The list is huge, especially for women. The appearance is a must to consider carefully. Now it is time to apply all the suggestions from all the sources you have read for a successful interview. You need to write about you (just a revise for all the skills/qualifications), the employer, your crashed dreams and the nearby bar for a drink when your are done. Make it a double!
I maybe attend the worst interviews of all times. To prove it, I am mentioning a few questions that occur in my years of job/PhD position hunting:
- ‘Well in Denmark is very cold, too cold for someone from Cyprus’ (No comment).
- ‘Do you speak Dutch?’ (Who on Earth learns Dutch in adulthood?)
- ‘We speak danish in meetings?’ ‘But ‘speaking danish’ was not a requirement.’ ‘This is what we do here.’ (Why did you even ask me for an interview!)
- ‘We need someone speaking arabic.’ ‘Is someone else here speaks arabic’. ‘No’. (This was a position in Cyprus. No need to say more!)
Interviews are stessful enough and, as it seems, unneccesary. Employers know who they want from the application phase. However they need applicants to pass from all phases. It is the legal and ethical way we are doing for years and years. But it is unfruitful, expensive and too much effort for nothing.
So instead of expenting employees to be rock stars in interviews, maybe, just maybe, we need also to consider employers attidutes. They still not realise that they are the ones they shape employers performance. If we want better employees, we must have the best employers. And please stop making questions/comments such above. Give useful feedbacks, no stupid reasoning.
