Concerning online applications, interviews, panels and competency tests.

In these days of commitment to fairness, balance and some sort of equity in the interview process many employers, from large corporations to small businesses and SMEs, utilise a technique known as competency based interviewing. This means that candidates are judged against a set of criteria and each question is asked and marked against these. For example: communication skills; relationships; influencing; decision-making; teamworking; flexibility. The questions are often about how the interviewee would approach the job or undertake a particular task. Question: give an example of how you contributed to a team? How do you deal with difficult colleagues? How do you cope with stress? When did you last make a mistake or miss a deadline? How do you cope with setbacks (testing resilience)? A question which many candidates underestimate is the one asking why they want the job. There is an element of mystery about the job application process, whether it is for shelf-stacking in a supermarket or aspiring to join a venerable institution, company or public sector organisation. It might not be on a par with the big bang or the origins of the universe but recent experience would indicate that it is up there with such elusive conundrums as the hunting of the snark, the white rhino or the hen’s tooth. The first hurdle to the aspirant applicant, to organisations large and small, is the online application form. The wired world has replaced the ‘snail mail’ process of old - papers posted along with a stamp-addressed envelope for return of acknowledgment card and an anxiously anticipated phonecall - with the keyboard and screen-induced anxiety of the internet failure at the moment the ‘send’ button is pushed or before the multiple-choice test is finished. The pre-interview-test test is designed to put the applicant in ‘real-time’ situations to probe, supposedly, the common sense as well as ability of the potential employee. In organisations with defined hierarchies, structural layers and bureaucracy underpinned by HR departments, what is being ‘probed’ ‘teased out’ and generally ‘reinforced’ is the absolutely fundamental requirement to recognise when to refer to management in the form of section leader, team head or department co-ordinator. Whether the challenge is returning the baked beans to the shelf of origin whilst simultaneously advising a customer on laxative powder or deciding to help a colleague in the midst of editing a piece for the evening news, the ability to spot the referral to management moment is key. These pre-tests often come in the form of ‘best-worst’/’effective-least effective’ outcome scenarios, with or without the optional extra of the said scenario being presented in the form of a short video. The next challenge begins with the email, text or telephone call summoning the applicant to the organisational presence. It is at this point that it is revealed to the future mover and shaker whether he or she is to face a ‘panel’. These specially-created bodies are designed to reassure folk as to the impartial, unbiased, discrimination-reducing nature of the process but often have the effect on the interviewee of being hauled before the grand inquisitorial committee of the central board of inquiry. Whatever user-friendly measures are put in place – cheery smiles and ‘informal dress – the fundamental terms of trade inherent in the process is one of question and answer and justification of a life lived thus far. One technique employed is the expansion of the personal experience question: ‘tell us about a time when you….. saved the paper clip fund’ or ‘give us an example of fortitude in the face of disappointment’. This invites the applicant to exemplify by way of illustrative example but not to lurch into anecdotage or after-dinner-style yarn spinning. This does not mean that the panel dynamic of ‘good cop/bad cop’ is entirely eliminated. The inter-panel competitive sport of who can ask the hardest question can take over proceedings at any time resulting in the applicant experiencing the interview equivalent of the hospital pass on a rain-soaked muddy field with the question in ever-diminishing prospect of being answered. In the case of a well-known publicly-funded broadcaster it has ever been thus: the late veteran foreign correspondent Charles Wheeler described his panel interview at which he was advised that it was not an advantage to learn a language and that moreover he shouldn’t be under the impression that ‘we take anyone off the street’. The political journalist John Sergeant describes his panel interview experience as being akin to being summoned by a heavenly committee whereat he was asked whether the writing work he had done for the award-winning satirical TV programme That Was the Week That Was was not an example of his ‘tendency towards puerile schoolboy humour’ – a suggestion at which he did not demur but he had been refereed in his application by leading playwright Alan Bennett. It is perhaps reassuring to note that Charles Wheeler went on to become one of the finest broadcast journalists of the twentieth century and John Sergeant had an illustrious career as political correspondent and found fame as Strictly Come Dancing competitor. The frustrations of seeking gainful employment in a world of competition overlayed with Kafkaesque absurdity are nothing new. In fact, twas ever thus.