Interview Etiquette Begins The Minute You Walk in the Door from CareerJournal is a must-read piece for Gen Y workers. I’ve seen some of these traits first hand in initial interviews or even email communications.
I had a candidate this past week email me his resume and cover letter. Strangely, he wasn’t even close to fitting the clearly specified requirements of the position. He then followed up with the same email to me for the next 2 days. Except these times he had 5MB of attachments to his email. Finally, on the 3rd time, he sent the 5MB email to me 3 times in the middle of the night and filled my email quota (essentially shutting it down). I was fuming – talk about bad etiquette!
Ok, I’m done venting – back to the article. Many candidates ignore this truth:
Your demeanor comes under scrutiny the moment you arrive at a search firm. “We are building a picture of you piece by piece,” explains Dora Vell, managing partner of Vell & Associates, high-tech recruiters in Waltham, Mass.
And this is another move we have seen first hand:
You chat briefly, repeatedly peeking at your BlackBerry. Another dumb move. Twice in the past six months, aspiring vice presidents have pulled out these email devices during interviews…
Talk about interview suicide. Anyone who must check their cell or BlackBerry during and interview should be removed from consideration. One principle we adhere to – this is the best they will ever be. What I mean is that the interview will be their best behavior. Everything after that is less formal. If they do not display a minimum level of formality in the interview, you do not want to turn them loose inside your office or worse, in front of your clients.
The closing paragraph from the article hits the nail on the head:
He suspects many ill-mannered job seekers suffer from a similar, excessive sense of self-importance. “If you’re going to interview for a job, interview 100%,” Mr. Gallagher advises. “Put everything else out of your mind.”