Thursday, June 12, 2008

The Other Side of the Table

Hello poor neglected blog. It's been almost a week since I blogged anything sorry :( So, what have I been up to? Well, this week it's been interviews. Not for me, I've been the one DOING the interviews! It's been an interesting experience. Late last week we got notice that our part time receptionist is going back to school. My boss has been out of town all week but, in the interest of expediency, in her absence, she had my co-worker and I do initial interviews. We utilized the service of a placement agency so that we wouldn't have to do advertising and wait for resumes to come in. Sharron (my co-worker) and I did five interviews this week. Four from the agency and one from word of mouth.

Being on the other side of the table in an interview is very interesting. A lot of "what not to do" stories from applicants being 45 minutes late(!) to not being dressed appropriately, to just things you really shouldn't say if you truly want the job.

The other interesting thing was that both Sharron and I had the same gut reaction to each of the applicants and we agreed on the final "ranking" system that we used to recommend applicants to our boss. My boss and I have second interviews booked for tomorrow and hopefully our gut reaction will be correct.

Interviewing is very time consuming though. I'll be glad when it's over. It's another skill to add to my own resume though...which...I think I'll go update. After seeing the ones I did, I have a few changes to make :)

2 comments:

Hokie Gal said...

Isn't interviewing fun?? It's amazing what stories you can hear from prospective candidates! Good luck with the next round.

shirley said...

An astute colleague of mine once said you make an assessment of a candidate in the first 5 seconds. I find that he was correct..... We are constantly interviewing people where I work. Lots of funny stories, for sure (like the guy who wore a tie with the Periodic Table of the Elements on it - can you say "geek"?)