When faced with an amateur interviewer, the earth doesn't move for Louise Marshall.
Being in a bad interview is like having bad sex. Beginning with a handshake that's crying out for Viagra, job seekers sometimes have to endure interviews that are less than earth shattering.
The ability to engage an applicant in open and honest conversation requires experience and skill and is best left to a confident person who has been around the recruitment block.
Too often, inexperienced staff are thrown into the recruitment deep end and are left clutching their questions and clipboards for safety.
In this day and age, most of us know that to ask anything that would discriminate on legislative grounds would be a step in the wrong direction.
Hopefully by now, we can throw away the list of questions that was drafted some time back in the 1980s.
With an interviewer following a script, it not only inhibits the natural flow of conversation, it restricts opportunities for a two-sided discussion and can be as impersonal as interviewing via SMS.
It has been said that some of the best interviews occur when magic happens between the candidate and interviewer. And as with all conjuring tricks, this takes skill and practice.
The virgin recruiter can be spotted early on and is often more focused on their own performance than what the candidate is saying. They appear to be going through the motions, offering very little by way of warmth and interest.
Bad interviews can leave a lingering taste and, depending on an applicant's tendency to dwell on things, can leave them pondering anything from "They're just not that into me" to "Was it something I said?" for up to a week.
Interviews that rely on ancient recruitment methods that adhere to formulaic lines of questioning whether applicable or not are like coercing conversations into the missionary position and, like the first few dates, it can be good in the early stages but becomes boring rather quickly.
Telling someone a story about your abilities but having to restrict it to the categories of "situation", "task" and "result" kills any hope of spontaneity.
Try it next time you are at a dinner party and a friend is telling a great story. Stop them mid-sentence and ask if they were satisfied with the outcome then notice how everyone in the room suddenly looks like they want to get up and slap you.
I can only hope that when the approval-to-recruit light goes on and the employment doors fling open, recruiters with personality welcome applicants with a human element that provides them with all the information they need to enter into a caring new relationship.
When it comes down to it, it's as much about giving as receiving, otherwise candidates may as well just do it themselves. And that's just not the same.
Is there an aspect of office life that makes you laugh, cry or simply drives you crazy? Readers are invited to submit 550-word articles for publication to theoffice@fairfax.com.au.