Some interviewers have been known to call job seekers at home and pose as telemarketers to gauge how those candidates react. Are they rude? Do they yell? Or are they polite but insistent that they don’t want to purchase anything?
How a candidate deals with an annoying telemarketing call tells the company something about how you would deal with an annoying client.
One of Lance’s favorite behavior tests is to drop her pen at some point during the interview and see how the candidate reacts. She makes sure to drop it an equal distance from herself and the job seeker.
“When they are telling you that they are customer-oriented and you drop your pen and they don’t notice or they don’t pick it up, it’s a disconnect between how they are and what they are saying,” she said. —J. D. Burrough —Interview twists, turns (AZ Central)
Interesting… in Death of a Salesman, when Willy is coaching his son Biff about what he imagines will be a life-changing business appointment, Willy says if something drops off the boss’s desk, don’t pick it up — they have office boys for that sort of thing. Willy probably would have failed many other tests, too.
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I didn't read the article, but the dropping the pen story has been around for a long time. If you pick up the pen, it could be evaluated in a positive light, but not always. I've heard another interpretation: the person who picks up the pen could be seen as lacking confidence, as a "yes man/woman," not a take-charge type. As Will said, there's no magic trick, but I can't imagine a worthy interviewer basing a hiring decision on the pen pick-up. The candidate who knows what the company is looking for, seems personable, and supports his/her claims with specific anecdotes of handling difficult situations is more likely to get the job. (unless someone know someone, of course)
Note that the reporter doesn't quote people who say they call up job candidates and pretend to be telemarketers, or people who say it happened to them. If one of my students turned in a research paper with this many vague references to what "some people" and "many people" say, I'd send it right back and ask for a revision.
Will's point is a good one -- it's no big deal for the company if they don't hire you, so long as they get someone else who's qualified. But the penalty to a company who hires someone who doesn't "fit" is great.
On the other hand, it's a very big deal for the individual applicant who doesn't get hired, and getting a job that's not perfect for you is still better than having no job at all, so the individual applicant is strongly motivated to appear to be exactly what the company wants. An article like this may fulfill the psychological need that job seekers have, since they are pretty much powerless and this secret knowledge makes them feel informed.
Matt, once in a great while I got a phone call from an organization I support, and I would always just invite them to send me a brochure. The ones that are serious about spreading the news loved to stay on the line and chat with me about our shared interest, and would happily send the brochure; telemarketers who were simply interested in racking up commission wouldn't bother.
I'm with will...I long ago gave up on even speaking to telemarketers, but that doesn't mean I'm incapable of dealing with difficult people.
Lots of people think they have the "magic trick" to figure out if a job candidate is good. Unfortunately, reality is a little to complicated for them to actually be effective. For one thing, people don't treat the person they are interviewing with the same way they treat a customer. And I certainly don't treat a telemarketer the way I treat anyone else. I just hang up on them. After having so many telemarketers call me, I don't think it's rude. A telemarketer is just doing their job. I don't need to be mean, but I don't have to let them waste any more of my time either.
I know the interviewing process doesn't care if they reject some good candidates, they just don't want to hire bad ones. But on the other side of the fence, if my potential boss was an hour late, changed the place we were supposed to meet, spilled something on me, and I thought they were calling me posing as a telemarketer - I would stay as far away from this job with a job who evidentally has mental problems.
Yes, this is a very interesting article.