IT staffing isn't just about finding the right candidate. It's about overcoming internal blind spots and prejudice.
In a past job of mine, we had an open position for a part-time user support assistant and we wanted to fill it with a student intern from one of the local colleges. Our goal with these positions was to give budding information technology professionals an opportunity to become exposed to the business world and to find their passion within the field.
One candidate stood out for the sincerity in her responses. It was clear she was not exaggerating her qualifications beyond what they were, nor was she saying anything just to please us -- her responses were thoughtful and honest throughout.
Nearing the end of the interview I asked her, "So where else have you applied for internships?"
She mentioned two other organizations. So I asked, "In what area of IT are those internships?"
"One is in the networking area, and the other is in the database area," she replied.
"Among the three internships, what is your order of preference?" I pursued.
Without flinching at all, she stated, "My first choice is [Company A], my second choice is [Company B]..." Her response put us in last place.
Without flinching myself, I asked her to explain the reasoning behind her ranking. Methodically, she explained, "[Company A] has the networking internship. I have heard network engineers make a lot of money. I have also heard that database people have strong career prospects."
After her departure, the committee sat down to make a decision. We each had our favorite candidate. Mine was this candidate -- though I was a little surprised to be the only one championing her.
"But she is not even interested in this position -- we are her third choice!" someone protested.
"I am not sure she will enjoy working in user support if she truly wants to be a network engineer or a database analyst," another person added.
"Yes, I agree with these concerns," I said. "But look -- her integrity is beyond question. She was the most honest of all the candidates we saw. Integrity of this level is rare. Yet, it is the most important asset in the IT field. We deal with too much sensitive information. We will be able to trust exactly what she tells us. She will not cover up her mistakes -- she will own up to them and we will be able to correct them.
"Look at how fearlessly she told us the truth about her choices. She was not willing to lie to make us feel good. She also gave us honest answers for her reasons. Thus, if she ends up working here, to be fair to her, we know that we have to expose her to network engineering as well as databases.
"Remember -- she is a young student and she still has to find herself. As part of her internship, we have to teach her that loving her work is more important than pursuing money. She can only be good in something she truly loves. Money will automatically follow quality as she progresses in her career. If we offer her the position, we will tell her we will expose her to our network engineers and database analysts so she can learn about those areas as well. We can give her all three internships right here and we can become her first choice. Once she has exposure to all the areas, she will be in a better position to judge what she truly loves.
"Personally, I would love the opportunity to work with a person of such high integrity at this stage in her career so I can mentor her the right way from the very beginning. She will be a star IT person someday."
Luckily, everyone agreed to give this candidate a chance and she readily accepted. We duly exposed her to network engineering as well as databases and she was able to find herself. She found out that she did not like network engineering. She ended up becoming an excellent business analyst with a strong database background. Her user support role taught her to deal with a wide variety of people and understand what they did. It also allowed her to polish her leadership skills, which became very important in her career. She is a gem wherever she works.
@nasimson - yes I agree some interviewers tend to penalize honesty - but that was the point of the article - they may be turning away an excellent employee.
It's good to see that there are some people who actually think this way .
You readily appointed that student because you found her honest which,in your opinion,was the first priority while selection, but this honesty and
straight forwardness sometimes become a misfortune as disclosing your flaws when you are not supposed to do so specially at the time of interview is like getting yourself into hot water.
plus as you have mentioned in your article that the girl was more interested in the other two internships .THUS If she would have been interested in this job, she would have shown a different traditional attitude.
Exactly, Kim. Too scripted, too polished, too inhuman. If a cust. serv. agent or tech. support person says that to me, I'm immediately expecting him/her to be a total nincompoop whose supervisor I'm eventually going to have to speak to.
@Joe: You're quite right. College education these days is no longer an easy decision. It used to be a pretty straightforward choice for people when college education was directly proportional to income levels. However, we see plenty of cases today where people do well even without degrees and many college grads unable to get good earnings. Certainly makes things confusing.
Hmm, depends on the context, I think, Kim. "Challenge" can be an exciting choice, especially in writing, but in the customer service context, it implies a sense of adventure that somebody with a customer service issue/problem/challenge simply does not want to go on.
Think about the most frustrating customer service issue you had to deal with for yourself. Now think about how much more frustrating it might have been for you had it been reframed for you during the call/correspondence as a "challenge."
("Challenge," after all, denotes reward -- some sort of fulfillment after a hero's journey. Very Joseph Campbell. Most customer service calls don't offer that.)
"Challenge" only works, I think, if you're taking a Seth Godin "Purple Cow" approach to it and using your horrible customer service as a unique marketing tactic, treating your horrible customer service like a marathon or a competition like "Tough Mudder." You could give out T-Shirts that read, "I survived a phone call to BigCompCorp's customer service line!" or beer glasses that read, "I got Bank of Frustration to refund a fee!"
@Joe - thanks for bringing up the issue about problem vs issue. I favor the term problem. Like you, I believe problems have solutions - root causes - which is the goal of a problem solver in the IT field. The problem does not have to be a person and usually is not - although, have to admit, sometimes it is someone. But if we do not identify how a problem happened, how would we prevent future problems? I think issue has too many political nuances and issues may never have solutions. Risk management has issues. User support has problems to solve - something that used to work and does not work anymore - there has to be root cause and a soul satisfying solution!
It *is* interesting. For me, part of it is the wannabe writer in me. So I have more than a passing interest in word choice.
The training I got in customer service, though, explained it as, and I'm paraphrasing:
You want to keep the customer focused on getting to a fix. So don't use words that induce conflict. Never use the word "problem," for example. Problems to most customers have causes that are to be blamed on someone. And the customer is going to make sure they aren't it. Find words that don't lead to blame. "Issue," for example, acknowledges that something is happening, but it's broad enough that you and the customer can move forward to a resolution without getting involved in a blame game, or a confrontation.
In a customer service situation, made complete sense to me. I get what you're saying though. And, actually, excellent example. :)
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