The P Word

So Tuesday was the interview day with the medical support company and Wednesday was the advertising agency interview for Margot.  Not bad but not great.  Life-long job decisions often get screwed up over day-to-day timing.  If Margot got an offer from the medical company they weren't going to want and wait around for three weeks while Margot talked to the ad agency.  They would want an answer, yes or no, now.  But first the interview.

As one of the remaining five canditates, Margot was climbing the organizational ladder.  The next, and probably final, interview was with the VP of Operations.  College career centers and any book on interviewing teach us to be aware and ready for the stealth question but it usually is something along the lines of "Where do you want to be in five years?" or "What is your greatest weakness?"  (The best answer I've heard of for the "Where do you want to be in five years?" question was "General Manager of the White Sox" which was a pretty gutsy way of saying "That's about the stupidest question I've ever heard.  Can't you do better than that?"  The guy got the job but did not become GM of the White Sox.)

The VP of Operations must have read a few books on interviewing or considered himself an amateur psychologist as he started out the interview without saying anything.  A bit disconcerting for Margot but she has her mother's ability to suffer fools so she sat there basically saying, body language wise, nice try.  I've been on the other end of this technique as well and the purpose is to make the silence so overbearing that the canditate finally can't stand it any longer and blurts out something really stupid.  The interviewer then has the advantage and the interviewee is reduced to tears. 

Discarding that ploy, the VP asked a few harmless questions and then "Tell me why you are passionate about medical care?"  Passion is another, currently in vogue, Human Resource buzzword that drives me crazy.  You have to be Passionate about your job, your industry, your calling.  If you started making random calls to major companies at 8:30 in the morning, I doubt you would find many people who would characterize themselves as passionate just at that moment.  People work to put food on the table and may become "passionate" about their jobs sometime but not likely.

More importantly, passionate people make stupid mistakes.  Passion is defined as "violent, intense, overwhelming feeling."  Just what you want in an employee, a nut.  Successful careers and successful businesses are built on calm, measured, thorough analysis and decision making.  Not on zealots running down the halls.  I've seen 'passionate' people in action and they do make an impact, usually negative, in the short run but soon burn out or are tossed out.  Passion has it place, boy does it, but not in the corporation.

So this one did catch Margot a bit off guard.  She mumbled something about world peace and got through the rest of the interview relatively unscathed.  But she didn't think so. 

Margot called, we talked and she said she basically blew the interview.  Margot has a pretty good attitude about things like this and her rationale was "I don't think I really want to work there anyway but the money was pretty good so...damn it."  A little mad, a little disappointed but basically over it and wanting to get to the next day and the interview at the advertising agency.

I was glad to see that.  I tend to agonize over what I should have said or should have done rather than just letting things go.  Not Margot.  Another personality trait inherited from her mother.  Now on to the ad agency on Wednesday.