{"id":1486,"date":"2009-10-26T15:44:15","date_gmt":"2009-10-26T13:44:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marketingyourdreams.wordpress.com\/?p=70"},"modified":"2009-11-17T16:39:01","modified_gmt":"2009-11-17T14:39:01","slug":"the-power-play-between-the-potential-employer-and-the-employee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pinartarhan.com\/blog\/the-power-play-between-the-potential-employer-and-the-employee\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power Play Between The Potential Employer and The Employee"},"content":{"rendered":"

PART 1:\u00a0 THE FRUSTRATING MULTI STAGE TESTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have been through at least a dozen interviews and listened to all my\u00a0friends interview horror tales. Just yesterday, a friend\u00a0of mine was telling me about how she\u00a0left\u00a0her office\u00a0for an hour to be able to get to\u00a0an interview for a company. She hates her current job and she\u00a0tries\u00a0to\u00a0get as many interviews as possible, though it gets tricky to find the time to leave the office.<\/p>\n

She was expecting a one-on-one traditional interview, dressed for the part and\u00a0feeling all confident. She had\u00a0knowledge and probably more enthusiasm than all the other\u00a0candidates combined. So she was really taken aback when the Human Resources Rep. announced that she was ready to distribute the test to all the waiting candidates. My friend was more than taken aback, since the woman hadn’t let her know about this “little test”. Moreover she seemed to have informed all others. Now she had to translate 5 medical articles. The test duration was three hours yet there was no way she could be away from the office that long so she did her best for a while and then fled the scene. So apparently the actual interview will take place for the people who score desirable test results. Oh, I think it is best that I mention she wasn’t applying for a interpreter job.<\/p>\n

All the big corporations seem to have made a habit to put candidates through a set of tests that take place\u00a0through a period of weeks and each test takes hours. Well, if you are really, really willing to get the job, you might think that the time & effort you invest\u00a0in the tests and\u00a0if you are lucky, the interviews are a small price\u00a0to pay. But then again, who in\u00a0his\/her right mind applies to only one corporation\/company at this ridiculously fragile state of the economy and\u00a0the fiercely competitive job market? So you apply to all the firms that fit your criteria: the ones that you can possibly commute\u00a0to, the ones that\u00a0pay reasonable salaries and\/or that are\u00a0remotely\u00a0relevant to\u00a0your education and\/or to the career\u00a0path you want to follow. So imagine applying to an average of 20 jobs, and that 90% puts\u00a0you through those stages of exhausting tests\u00a0and then don’t usually bother to call\u00a0you back with some feedback.<\/p>\n

I can see how smart an idea these tests\/interviews are for the employer who wants to make sure only the best\u00a0candidates are hired. But what about the\u00a0potential\u00a0employees whose time spent isn’t taken into consideration at all? The problem with these interviews are that they are the\u00a0brainchild of executives\/human resources people who have\u00a0most probably forgotten what it is like to be hanging on the phone, hoping for a positive reply, or at least a heads up on the situation so they can finally move on.<\/p>\n

Imagine how terrible it would be to actually pass the test but\u00a0after getting hired, you realize that the work environment and the organizational culture are nothing\u00a0like what you imagined\u00a0they would be.\u00a0Of course it is a worst-case scenario, but unfortunately it happens more often than not. As the unemployment\u00a0rates go up, the employer\u00a0gets the\u00a0upper hand.\u00a0Job applicants get more and more desperate, depressed even so they tend to cross-fingers and settle for what they can get, rather than question and challenge the system. Which brings us to the second part:<\/p>\n

PART 2:\u00a0AN\u00a0INTERVIEW IS A\u00a0\u00a0TWO-WAY STREET<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another friend of mine applied to 20 jobs before he got his current job, and only two of them provided a response. One was negative and the other asked for an interview. The interview ran smoothly and after the second one went well also, it was time to negotiate the conditions. Of course the concept of negotiation was what went through my friend’s mind. When his then interviewer told him about all the perks and conditions, he expected my friend to start working the next day. Instead my friend asked for some time to think about. Yes, he needed the paycheck but he also needed to think it over. He was going to invest at least 10 hours everyday to this job and he had to decide if the trade-off was going to be worth it. He eventually said yes. But the funny thing is what his boss recently confessed to him about that\u00a0third interview. He said that he never even thought about his interviewee may not\u00a0jump at the offer; that\u00a0the interview actually had two\u00a0sides. My friend was also evaluating\u00a0if the job and the employer was worth his time and future work.<\/p>\n

It is funny\u00a0when you think about it. People who\u00a0are in the\u00a0hiring position rarely\u00a0even consider that you may not like to\u00a0work for them. As\u00a0far as they are concerned, there’s plenty of fish in the\u00a0sea and if you are not pleased with the offer, they know hundreds of people who will. But this unfortunately creates a bitter and vicious cycle.\u00a0The more\u00a0power the applicants give away, the more powerful the\u00a0firms become. The more powerful they become, they get\u00a0all the options and the right to choose –\u00a0which in turn gives more power to the employer.<\/p>\n

This is exactly where you need to\u00a0realize it is a power play. You need to show to the interviewer that you are a\u00a0qualified candidate (we are assuming that you are fit for the job). You also need to evaluate the manners of the interviewer.\u00a0From the way the interview is conducted, you can actually get a lot of clues about the work\u00a0environment.<\/p>\n

TO BE CONTINUED…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PART 1:\u00a0 THE FRUSTRATING MULTI STAGE TESTS I have been through at least a dozen interviews and listened to all my\u00a0friends interview horror tales. Just yesterday, a friend\u00a0of mine was telling me about how she\u00a0left\u00a0her office\u00a0for an hour to be able to get to\u00a0an interview for a company. She hates her current job and she\u00a0tries\u00a0to\u00a0get […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[545],"tags":[791,815,816,817,827],"class_list":{"0":"post-1486","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-marketingdreams","7":"tag-business-interviews","8":"tag-organizationas-culture","9":"tag-potential-employers","10":"tag-power-play","11":"tag-work-environment","12":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pI4PB-nY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinartarhan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinartarhan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinartarhan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinartarhan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinartarhan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pinartarhan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1497,"href":"https:\/\/pinartarhan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1486\/revisions\/1497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinartarhan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinartarhan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinartarhan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}