After my "retirement" from life in corporate health care I spent several years trying on new careers. Oh alright, some of the things I tried weren't exactly careers, but they were new. And odd. And not very good. Going back to school for a Masters didn't work well either. I got the Masters but couldn't enter the field. What to do now?
"Go back into marketing," friends suggested, "You were so good at it." But I HATED it - why, at this critical point in my life would I go back to something I hated? (Money maybe...money is nice...) Besides, I reasoned, I had been out of the marketplace for lots of years. Things had changed. Technology for one. I was at least ten years behind on my technical know-how. I knew nothing about managing web pages, I was computer literate at a first grade level (and proud of that accomplishment) Plus, I had no more contacts in the field. They'd all moved on, retired or were out doing the same thing I was doing - searching for meaning. The market had moved on without me. (Buh bye!!) I was really too old to turn back. AND I didn't want the pressure or the responsibility. But I did need some money.
I reviewed my professional accomplishments and identified some types of jobs for which I might be suited. I created five versions of my resume and started posting on job sites and responding to openings I found through other sources. I scored a few interviews...well, not exactly interviews, they were more like pre-interviews. Conducted on the phone by young ( very young girls named Jessie or Sierra)) HR staff. If these guys liked you you could go on to the next level (double Jeopardy maybe?)
During these pre-interviews I had more than my share of questions about why I had left marketing. I quickly realized that many young people have no concept of career burnout. Nor do they understand the midlife need to seek out work that is more meaningful. Answers of that nature (at least from the folks I spoke with) were met with dead silence. The HR kidlets appeared to be stuck on the issue of someone leaving a high profile, good paying, highly sought after job. There did not seem to be an acceptable reason for such a radical decision. My answers were not sufficient. The only 'burnout" these kids had ever experienced was an uncharged Ipod. The only "meaningfulness" they could connect to were the words of a song. I never did find an acceptable response to these questions. But, these question were nothing compared to the next ones.
Welcome to Behavioral Interviewing. If it has been a while since you've had a bona fide job interview let me be the first to tell you - things have changed. I used to hire people all the time. I looked for a good personality fit, the right skills, the most appropriate experience and often I gave them an assignment. Of course I checked references and all that "have to do" stuff. But I hired by instinct. I was only wrong once in twenty-some years. But somewhere in the past 10 years someone invented a new way of interviewing...and if you are not prepared for it, it can totally throw you off balance.
Behavioral interviewing is sold to HR professionals as a sure-fire way to get the best facts you can get in order to make a good hiring decision. Sounds good. There's more. Behavioral interviewing is said to be an accurate way to predict future behavior based upon past performance in similar situations. For example, where in the past someone would ask you to talk about the kinds of things you did for company X, in a behavioral interview the question would be more specific, "Tell me about a time that you had a tight deadline and knew you weren't going to meet it." If you are able to answer that question, the skilled interviewer (and they aren't all skilled) would probe your response further and further. It's kind of like being on trial - without any legal representation.
Behavioral interviewing is said to measure critical thinking (yeah, it's critical that you are able to think of answers to these questions), willingness to learn, self-confidence, teamwork, and professionalism. It is also said to identify those of us who are self-starters (as opposed to those who need someone to crank them up). I'm sure there's more. Most of these questions start with the words. "Tell me about a time.." or "Describe a situation in which ...". The problem here (at least for me) was that I consistently had trouble thinking (or remembering) situations that related. Heck, I had 25 years of work experience and darn few of the questions were relevant. (Or my memory was shot). I totally blew my first two interviews (one on the phone, one in person).
As is my pattern, I decided to learn as much as I could about this "technique" since everyone was using it. (And I mean everyone). I went online and found tons of semi-helpful information. Pages and pages of potential questions and even hints for what each type of question was really looking for. There were even websites that suggested the best responses (without the specifics).
Let's take the statement/question I used previously:"Tell me about a time that you had a tight deadline and you knew you were not going to meet it." This is a LOADED question. Do you want to admit that you EVER missed a deadline? Will they believe you if you say you've never missed a deadline? And if you do fess up to missing a deadline what does that say about you???? This is a perilous journey. Whatever you answer you can be sure there are several more probing questions designed to uncover the true you (you lying scoundrel). Because this was one of the first questions I was ever asked I specifically remember my response. It was. "Well, in my department I set deadlines and real deadlines. My hope was to have the project done by deadline number one - and it always had to totally be done by deadline number two. So I never really missed a deadline." Did this tell them I was devious, a liar, too clever for my own skin? Perhaps I was unmanageable? I'll never know. I didn't get the job.
My 34 year old nephew tells me that the "best" answer would have been something like this: "I informed my supervisor and everyone else who had a stake in the project and told them my plans and gave a time by which the project would be done." Now, If I had said this (or even thought about it) it would have been a lie. I set my deadlines, I was in charge, and I never had to answer to anyone but myself. If my nephew is right (and he probably is) then it is not really about the prospective employer assessing how I would respond in a similar situation; it is more about how well I can think on my feet to conjure up the answer that will lead the interviewer to believe something about me that may not be true!
(Oh, did I tell you the interviewer scores your answers on some sort of score sheet. I don't think they throw out the highest and lowest scores... )
Although these questions are allegedly designed to make it harder for the interviewee to make up responses (yea, right), when faced with no response or a perfectly plausible (and sort of made-up) one I always chose the latter. Perhaps this was transparent. I didn't think so. I guess I was wrong.
The questions work best for people in left brain jobs. In fact they were probably designed by left brain people. If you are a right brained, creative, free spirit, you will learn to loathe Behavioral Interviewing as much as I do. If you are an accountant, engineer, computer programmer, chemist or bookeeper you will have no problems.
In any case, if you are out in the world for the first time in a long time, over 45 and looking for a job spend some significant time researching Behavioral Interviewing questions. There are some great websites. you can download hundreds of questions and try to imagine how you would answer them. It is said to be hard to prepare answers...but some kind of preparation is helpful. And good luck...you'll need it.
Lesson learned: Start your own business and bypass all this crap.
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