I am currently interviewing for a Vice President in an up and coming technology company. We recently flew in a promising candidate in order to discuss the position further. When asked to describe the best job he had ever had, he said, “I was a hot dog vendor in the red-light district, and I got to hang out with the ladies of evening.” Then he laughed.
This candidate checked off all of our other boxes: he had held the position before in another growing tech firm, he had the leadership skills that we wanted, and he was eager to get started, but this comment stopped us in our tracks.
As we discussed the candidate after the interview, one member of the interview team said that the candidate was “just joking” and we shouldn’t hold that comment against him.
But what if he wasn’t joking? There is a really big potential risk to take on when a candidate alludes to sex in an interview.
The bottom line is this: referring to and/or alluding to sex in a professional interview is completely inappropriate, no matter what the company, the product, the experience or the position. Whether this candidate meant to or not, you as the employer can’t under any circumstances take on that risk. It puts all of your other employees in a terrible position should this candidate not limit his inappropriateness to the interview process.
In other words, we can’t assume that he was joking. Next!
Beth Smith of A-list Interviews discusses why using the term “millennial” when recruiting could be a discrimination in this one minute interview essential video.
“Stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when you don’t feel like it…” – Stephen King, author
Many authors have described writing as a lengthy and arduous process. I myself have been in the process of writing a book for almost seven years now, and it seems I’ve been at it forever! And yet, as I put the final touches on my manuscript to send to the publisher, I am struck by how amazing this process has been (even though there were times when I wanted to pull my hair out). The learning, the soul searching, the patience and persistence have all been incredible lessons.
As I write, rewrite, delete, and continue to revise my vision, I realize that the process of writing a book is much like the process of interviewing for new employees:
Your vision changes as you go along. The book that I thought I was writing when I began this process is not the book that I ended up writing. I envisioned the process of writing a book was similar to the process of reading one – you start at the beginning and write steadily and smoothly until you’ve reached the end. I was unprepared for the amount of revisions, edits, rewrites and rearranging that occurs… and the same thing happens in the process of interviewing candidates for a position. My clients are surprised that midway through the process, we may change the job title, change the scope of the position or change the current department structure because we now have a better idea of what we need. You truly do not know what you are looking for until you begin the search, any more than I knew what book I would be writing until I started to write it.
Never, never, never give up. Wise words uttered from the amazing Winston Churchill. There were SO many times that I wanted to just quit writing. I got stuck, had writer’s block, or just became fed up with the whole process and would exclaim, “That’s it! I give up!” About that time, I would have a breakthrough that gave my book and my vision for it new energy. When you are interviewing for new employees, you will have bad days. You will think, “I am NEVER going to find someone!” Then, suddenly because you kept at it, a person walks in and renews your energy, both in the new employee and in your business.
It’s worth it. Much like completing a book, when you have finished the search, when you have found your Ideal Person and you have completed the hiring process, you feel like you could “leap tall buildings in a single bound!” You forget the times when you got stuck, frustrated, impatient, and the times where you HATED the process. Instead, you feel like you won the lottery!
While you continue the search for A-list employees (and while I complete this final phase of publishing my book), remember: Anything worth having is worth the trouble of making it happen, whether it be writing a book or hiring your next superstar. And stay tuned as my book, “Why Can’t I Hire Good People?” hits the bookshelves this spring!
Many authors have described writing as a lengthy and arduous process. I myself have been in the process of writing a book for almost seven years now, and it seems I’ve been at it forever! And yet, as I put the final touches on my manuscript to send to the publisher, I am struck by how amazing this process has been (even though there were times when I wanted to pull my hair out). The learning, the soul searching, the patience and persistence have all been incredible lessons.