guff

Anti-Résumé

While caught up in what seems the new perennial human activity of looking for work — what I consider to be my current full-time accidental volunteer position — I find it would in general be faster, and in an ironic way more humane, if all the pretense was dispensed with and I’d be asked what there is (if anything) about my background or personality which might keep me from getting gainful employment. At least it would hurt a bit less, in that I’d know with some certainty what stands in the way of acceptance for me, rather than being caught in the middle of a humiliating an intractable exercise as low level middle-managers with three days in-training-room experience ineptly extract an obsessively routine selection of my atonally repeated positive points of education and work minutiae, then when a position is filled by someone else, and I (and in interest of feigning allegiance to the unemployed masses, all the rest of us) am left without reason or callback.

I’ve never seen this as a very effective way to run a shop, and it’s hardly a beneficial hiring process, either for the company or potential employees. Back when I handled the role of questioning candidates for positions in a company, I chose to cut through the well honed and so overly predictable step-by-step guidelines. If not directly with straightforward “just how unskilled are you for this position?” types of questions, at least in the circumscription of my methodology I tried to find ways to draw them out of the prepared shell built around them by previous interviews and preparatory classes. This was not a bid to goad them into work history perjury or anything else so sinister (that’s just gravy). A job interview that gains candid insights into someone or at least a deeper peek than what’s normally glimpsed, is one where both come away with a better idea of how it all might work out when the job is offered.

Besides, when I’m sitting on the interviewee side, sweating and sucking pen caps to keep my mouth from going dry, I’d like it if I was made to feel engaged in some fashion, that the individual across from me had a semblance of communicative skills beyond the rote reading of some Q & A photocopied by the temp in Human Resources. It’s also generally a good experience if the questions I’m asked and my answers to such are not a mere duplication of some costly but two dimensional interview training program (from both sides of the desk). This is not to say you throw away the résumé. Not quite. It’s to acknowledge that an interview is two things at once: it’s a process of discovery, where you seek the skills, character, and temperament of someone to ascertain whether their jigsaw edge fit into yours. And it’s a form of communication, a conversation, where in its tracks and maneuverings you use a little intuition and a dash of common sense to verify what all the other tools are telling you (or not).

So am I suggesting a new way to go about the interviewing of personnel? That’s kind of what I’m proposing. There’s much to be earned in moving over to a method that provides actual communication during an interview. However, please ignore all this if I happen to have an interview lined up with you soon. I don’t want to confuse any prospective employers with a set of demands up front on how my interview should proceed.

Better yet: hire me, as I’m willing to train.