Go Negative
Focusing job interviews almost entirely on the candidates negative qualities could lead to greater insight
#1.
When we think about how to present and express ourselves when applying for a job and interviewing for a job, we almost always focus on how to present ourselves in a positive light. How do we fit into the job listing’s qualifications? How do we empirically demonstrate our efficacy in past professional experiences? How do we more or less show our potential employers that we are good, hard-working, highly skilled people?
#2.
Obviously it’s important for candidates to have the basic qualifications for a job as well as the proper technical requirements and whatever else the employer determines as valuable qualities specific to the job, the company and the industry.
#3.
I do wonder however if this culture of self-aggrandizement in presenting oneself as a viable and potentially valuable worker has ultimately served to further obfuscate what is the-already-difficult endeavor of getting to know someone in a limited span of time in extremely limited contexts.
#4.
What I am suggesting is that people have become too proficient in presenting themselves in a positive light. At the atomic level of this premise is our inherent inability to fully understand another person. On a more practical level, there are simply positive traits — the aforementioned “hard-working” quality being the most prominent — that cannot be meaningfully verified. Instead, we as a culture have accepted the introduction of a lot of noise to try to compensate for our lack of a meaningful measurement system but instead have ultimately further obscured our ability to distill a potential employee’s essence. Here are letters of recommendation verifying my work ethic. Here are all the different roles and responsibilities I’ve held, a testament no doubt to my ability to adapt. Here are metrics on all the projects on which I’ve held a position of leadership.
#5.
I’m not suggesting these things have zero value. I am suggesting the possibility that these things lack an efficiency and precision to them. I am suggesting that instead of focusing on a candidate’s achievements and positive traits and experiences, it may be more efficient and precise — from an evaluation standpoint — for employers to focus their job application and job interview process on their candidates negative aspects and experiences.
#6.
The cliche job interview question of what is your biggest weakness or flaw or whatever is pretty much a complete joke because the culture of self-aggrandizement is so pervasive that these answers are almost always carefully crafted to reflect positively on the person answering the question. Unless a candidate is pushed to elaborate on their flaw and interrogate that flaw and its consequences in real-time right in front of the interviewer, this question ends up being as meaningless and silly as its standing in pop culture suggests it to be.
#7.
However, to me, one’s ability to acknowledge and engage and satisfactorily explore at length one’s weaknesses and failures seems central to evaluating their potential as an employee because it bespeaks their ability to effectively communicate in a humble and seemingly honest manner. It simply seems more difficult to lie or embellish one’s weaknesses and failures. The culture we live in does not nurture us to scheme up the best ways to talk about our weaknesses and failures in the same way it nurtures us to scheme up the best ways to talk about our strengths and successes. Therefore, when one does speak about their weaknesses and failures it tends to lack premeditation and tends to feel like something searching and contemplating and unrestrained — all qualities putatively evoking some degree of honesty.
#8.
In The New York Times Magazine’s very recent Work Issue, Charles Duhigg patiently and effectively explores Google’s ongoing pursuit of figuring out how to build a perfect team.
Contained in Duhigg’s exploration are numerous instances alluding to and eventually affirming communication’s paramount importance in the workplace.
- “In a 2015 study, executives said that profitability increases when workers are persuaded to collaborate more. Within companies and conglomerates, as well as in government agencies and schools, teams are now the fundamental unit of organization. If a company wants to outstrip its competitors, it needs to influence not only how people work but also how they work together.”
- “In the last decade, the tech giant has spent untold millions of dollars measuring nearly every aspect of its employees’ lives. Google’s People Operations department has scrutinized everything from how frequently particular people eat together (the most productive employees tend to build larger networks by rotating dining companions) to which traits the best managers share (unsurprisingly, good communication and avoiding micromanaging is critical; more shocking, this was news to many Google managers).”
- “After Sakaguchi spoke, another teammate stood and described some health issues of her own. Then another discussed a difficult breakup. Eventually, the team shifted its focus to the survey. They found it easier to speak honestly about the things that had been bothering them, their small frictions and everyday annoyances. They agreed to adopt some new norms: From now on, Sakaguchi would make an extra effort to let the team members know how their work fit into Google’s larger mission; they agreed to try harder to notice when someone on the team was feeling excluded or down.”
- “The paradox, of course, is that Google’s intense data collection and number crunching have led it to the same conclusions that good managers have always known. In the best teams, members listen to one another and show sensitivity to feelings and needs.”
#9.
Why is it that expressions and explications of one’s negative aspects and experiences end up cultivating an environment of more honest and more empathetic communication? Is it possibly because so much of being a human being in modern life entails continually sending out and receiving signals of self-aggrandizement? Is it possible that our immersion in such a relentless culture of this has inured us to all but the most extreme communications of one’s positive aspects and experiences? If these seem like reasonable assumptions, is it then possible that communications of negative aspects and experiences result in better work environments because they extricate us from the gamesmanship and consequent suspicion of self-aggrandizement and return us to a state of seemingly honest transactions of feelings and ideas? In other words, do we bond ourselves to these more honest-seeming environments and the participants with whom we share these environments because we crave respite?
#10.
Talk about your problems. Talk about the challenges facing you becoming the person you want to be. Why have you failed in the past? Why could you fail in the future? What is the worst part about you? What is the worst thing you have ever done? Reveal to us the worst version of yourself and make it feel real.
