So I just read this article http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Article/MSN-2051-Interviewing-The-Worst-Interview-Faux-Pas since I have a few friends interviewing at different places and I was curious if it was worth forwarding out. For the most part it is a reasonable article but there are two very specific topics that really pissed me off when I read it.

Section 6: Poor Presentation, 3rd quote.

“I once had a recent graduate who looked fantastic on paper, but showed up wearing  flip-flops. During the interview, he would lean back in his chair, flex his hands over his head and he even said several curse words in his responses. It was so bad I e-mailed him afterwards to point out his most obvious blunders!” – Nickie Doria, marketing director for Emmer Development Corp.

Reading this quote actually made me think “Fuck You”.  Sure, I wore a suit to my interview for my current employer (whom I love and where I now wear flip-flops to work most days) to show respect but it probably wasn’t essential. They were hiring a specific talent, not a specific look. I am pretty sure I leaned back in my chair a bit since I was at ease and relaxed mostly. I avoided the F bomb or anything similar but even having that requirement is absurd. If you are hiring an adult, to do grown up things… language and attire should be no limitation. I will avoid my rant on curse words since I am strongly opinionated and could dedicate an entire post to that alone. The pretentious attitude that is conveyed in this quote really gets me fired up. So the gist of this one for me is… treat adults like adults, companies with restrictions and limitations so strict they are essentially treating their workforce like children strangle their talent  in my opinion. To the dude above that didn’t get the job… you didn’t really want to work there anyways (hah, like he will ever see my blog but whatever)

Section 8: Forgetting to clean up digital dirt, The entire section.

“Of course, for those who are MySpace and Facebook junkies, make sure your pages are set to the private setting. We actually had a girl apply for a leasing position with one of our companies, and she did very well during the interview. Later, the manager wanted to learn more about her, and found that her MySpace name was … well somewhat promiscuous at best! Needless to say, she never even got a call back! – Doria

Seriously, I want to slap this person. Who cares if she is a slut (what I get from the implication above)? That has nothing to do with her work. If she can close leases on properties fast enough to meet or beat quota then I don’t give a damn if she spends her weekend snorting coke off a bathroom urinal while getting double penetrated by Ron Jeremy and Peter North (to the people who instantly knew those names… you are sick, of course I referenced them so what does that say about me?). Someone’s personal life should not be a consideration in their employment. Sure, it can be a benefit for instance a digital designer who happens to have a large online gallery; but it should never detract. People who look at a facebook page and think oh noes, they have pictures playing beer pong… to them I say they are hypocrites. They do/did the same shit, they just don’t have the balls to take a picture of it and post it online for everyone to see the real them. Again, this one angers me because personal and work time are entirely different.

Sure, if there was a picture of them pissing in the coffee at work, that would be different… that directly affects them in a job related manner. However, if my picture is from a going away party for friend, where I happened to be chugging beer from a beer bong and couldn’t exactly stand up straight while doing it… well that shouldn’t matter. Tell me how doing that on a Friday night makes me less capable on Monday morning? If anything you should be worried about people who DO clean up their online digital presence, it means they believe they have something to hide and are willing to do so. Who do you want to hire… someone who believes they may be doing something wrong or unsavory but they are willing to simply hide it from you and attempt to live two separate lives essentially lying about their true nature OR someone who is open and honest with who and what they are and they embrace it?

Conclusion

The “conventional wisdom” relayed in the above statements really drives me nuts. We live in a free country but people’s personalities are so oppressed in the business culture (I will avoid another rant about this that could be another blog post). Companies that are growing, thriving, changing the world… I like to think they throw this “wisdom” out of the window and look at what the people they are interviewing can actually do while they are at work. Not how they look when they get to work, or what they do when they aren’t at work… neither of those matter. People who believe they do matter, are living in an age that has passed and will slowly die as they do.