We’ve all heard the expression: “You only get one chance to make a good first impression.” If you are like most people, there has been a time when you know that you didn’t make a good first impression and would love to get a “re-do.” After all, it seems unfair to be judged too critically on your worst moment instead of on your best (or at least a running average of all your moments). But such is life.
When interviewing for a job, it’s no different. You want to make the best first impression you can. You would feel awful if an interviewer overly judged you on a small mistake made during your first encounter.
But did you ever stop to think how that works in reverse? What we mean by that is that sometimes candidates prematurely judge a job opportunity because of the experience they had with the first person they met from that company. Sometimes they are too quick to judge and should consider why the interviewer didn’t bring their “A-game” to the interview.
It’s in that light, that we are sharing six seemingly negative behaviors you might encounter with an interviewer. Alongside it, we provide a common interviewee interpretation as well as what may be “the rest of the story.” Note, that some of these may apply uniquely to a hiring conference scenario where you can’t help but compare one interviewer’s style with another one whom you met an hour earlier.
Interviewer Behavior: The interviewer checks their cell phone messages or emails during the interview.
Interviewee Interpretation: Such rude behavior on the part of the interviewer! If I am interviewing for their company, I should get their full attention.
The rest of the story: We’ve usually come across this scenario when the interviewing team is physically away from their normal workplace. And in most cases, it’s a behavior attributed to just one person among a team of interviewers. Just because the interviewer is away from the workplace, doesn’t mean the rest of their job goes away, especially if they wear multiple hats. This scenario is especially true when the interviewing team consists of individuals who are not part of the HR team. Oftentimes these are relatively senior people. We have had situations where an interviewer was doing their best to meet their interviewing schedule while at the same time dealing with a serious issue at their facility that also required their attention.
Interviewer Behavior: The interviewer asks a list of scripted questions without interacting with the candidate.
Interviewee Interpretation: The interviewer seemed very impersonal. Other companies that I interviewed with didn’t ask so many questions – they seemed like more casual conversations with friendly people to work with.
The rest of the story: There may be several reasons why the interview seemed so impersonal. For one, it could be that the company wants all initial interviews to be done that way so that the interviewers can take a very objective approach to evaluate each candidate purely on their answers instead of the interplay that often happens between questions. Doing so keeps them from unfairly evaluating a qualified candidate who isn’t good at small talk. Alternatively, it could be that the person doesn’t have a lot of experience interviewing. That may not be their normal job, so they are doing the best they can.
Interviewer Behavior: The interviewer didn’t sell the candidate on the company or the opportunity.
Interviewee Interpretation: Somewhat the same as above – the interviewer seemed impersonal. If they are not going to sell the opportunity, how good can it be?
The rest of the story: There could be a couple of things going on here. For one, good recruiters do tend to be good salespeople. But maybe, you are not being interviewed by a recruiter. Instead, it’s a person who is somewhere in the hiring chain who normally talks to candidates after they are already sold on the company. Therefore, they don’t spend time on that aspect of the hiring process. Another possibility is that they don’t want to oversell the opportunity. They want candidates to form their impression on the facts so as not to be swayed by an overly ambitious salesperson. But then there is another explanation: the company has an abundance of applicants for the role and given the supply-demand mix, they feel they don’t need to sell it.
Interviewer Behavior: The interviewer didn’t seem familiar with my resume.
Interviewee Interpretation: The interviewer didn’t adequately prepare for the interview.
The rest of the story: The interviewer is handling a very large load of candidates. And not just for this position. They could be juggling multiple job orders that make it difficult to keep every candidate straight. Alternatively, maybe your resume seemed like everyone else’s so there was nothing that made you stand out among the other candidates.
Interviewer Behavior: The interviewer asked “illegal” questions such as whether I was married, how many kids I had, etc.
Interviewee Interpretation: This is an unethical organization that does not use fair hiring practices.
The rest of the story: For sure, those are questions that should not be asked. But at the end of the day, interviewers are just people. Sometimes they can get so into a conversation with a candidate that such questions slip out when all they are trying to do is to get some friendly banter going. It could also be that it’s an inexperienced interviewer who never learned about taboo questions. There are many companies that we partner with that don’t involve their human resource professionals in the interviewing process that much. As such, the interviewer may unknowingly ask such questions with no ulterior motives.
Interviewer Behavior: The interviewer asked me what other companies or positions I was interviewing for.
Interviewee Interpretation: That seems rather rude. It’s none of their business who I am interviewing for.
The rest of the story. The interviewer could be assessing you as a very high potential candidate. In order to get a competitive edge, they want to scope out the competition in order to improve their chance to win you over. It’s not too different than when you are considering a major purchase and a salesman asks you what other company’s products you are considering. It’s not as if they are going to disparage those other companies (at least a good salesperson is careful not to do so) but they want to win every bit as much as you do.
Our recommendation is that when you are evaluating different career prospects, you should take many factors into account, including the interviewers’ behaviors. But be careful using any one factor to override all of the other important criteria. Keep in mind, that you may never actually work with the first person you meet; in fact, you may never even see them again. Deciding to work for a company is rarely love at first sight. While it’s nice if it is, a wise decision-maker will take an objective approach to evaluate their options.