I thought it might be helpful to show the 10 games that people play in the hiring process and how to deal with them.
- Being late. It is the norm for a company you are interviewing with to be late. I wait 15 minutes and then send the recruiter a message that I no longer want to continue with the process. Anyone who doesn’t respect your time doesn’t deserve it.
Asking you a question and then contradicting your answer. This is another favorite technique designed to see how well you deal with conflict. The sad truth about this is that 99% of people don’t want to have conflict, and when you provide a different answer than they were expecting they don’t like it. If you give a valid and logical reason for your answer they don’t see the value of it, and think negatively of you. I answer the question and contradict if I need to. If they reject me for having an opinion that is fine with me.- Asking a question that has many answers but they only want their answer. This is another popular one. People get focused on the way they would do things, and don’t accept that there might be valid reasons to do things in a different way. Too often decision makers get stuck in their environment thinking, and forget exceptions exist for everything. I give one answer and then ask them to clarify if there is a goal in particular they want to achieve with an answer.
- Asking questions about something a person is not an expert in. Many times interviewers will ask questions to understand the level of which you understand something. On the surface this seems logical but it is not. No one knows every aspect of a product or feature, and if someone has managed something successfully for another company they know enough to manage it for you. There is a minimum level you have to understand to do a job and beyond that it is vanity. Plus people learn on the job, and if they learned how to do it before they will continue to learn about it. I answer all questions to the best of my ability.
- Asking questions about one topic for most of the interview. If a job post lists a dozen different skills but the majority of the interview is spent on one topic, then that is a disservice to both of the peoples time. If that skill is so important than make a job just for that position. You can’t list a dozen skills, and only talk about 3 of them. I answer all questions.
- Cutting an interview short. This clearly shows that the person isn’t interested in you and that is ok. Many jobs are toxic and don’t have environments you want to be in. A job is like anything else in life. It can be helpful and it can harm you, and not getting it may be the best outcome. I agree and leave whenever they want.
- Having excessive recruiter interactions. If a recruiter shares with you that past people weren’t satisfactory for a job that had a dozen different skills then it is possible that the real need in the organization aren’t understood. I give the recruiter everything they need no matter how ridiculous the request.
- Having a low Glassdoor score or negative reviews and them dismissing it. If the ratings are below 4 or the company has negative reviews I would be very cautious about doing it. I have worked at companies that had less than a 4 score and most of the negative reviews were true. This is a hard line I draw. I do not do business with companies that don’t respect employees.
- Asking you to do a video interview, IQ test or personality test. These are about compliance and the companies that do this have low Glassdoor ratings and poor reviews. There is nothing wrong with demonstrating your knowledge and passion in an interview, but these ways don’t help anyone. I don’t do it.
- Asking you to do a written interview instead of a spoken one. I had a company ask me to do this after sending me a strange email that asked me to respond with “yes” if I was interested in interviewing with the company. It felt off. They wanted me to answer 50 questions and write up a word document they sent me. This is a waste of time. If they can’t spend 15 minutes to interview me, what is what I write going to make any difference? I don’t do it.