Chapter 1: What insights does Harry Wallop share about job interviews?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk with Aviva Insurance. Well, last week on the show, we spoke about the Duolingo taxi test where the company paid drivers to assess job applicants on their way to the interview to get a real sense of what the person is like. Well, my next guest says there's a reason that you shouldn't put your true self forward in interviews.
I'm joined by columnist and journalist Harry Wallop. Good morning, Harry.
Good morning.
Thank you for being with us. Now, firstly, you did some research on how recruiters are screening their candidates. And from what you've written, there are all sorts of ways that they try to find out who you really are before they hire you. What are some of those ways that you found out about?
Chapter 2: What unconventional methods do recruiters use to assess candidates?
Well, the do-alone-go-taxi test sort of taps into this desire to find out the character of an individual. And there is the other one that people always trot out is what's known as the coffee cup test, whereby on the way to the interview in the office, you get taken into the work kitchen and you're offered a cup of tea or coffee. And it's handed to you in a mug. You finish the interview.
And then do you take the coffee cup back to the kitchen to have it washed up? You even wash it up yourself. Are you the sort of considerate person who thinks about that? Now, most professional recruiters say this is nonsense because all this test is whether, you know, you've remembered about the coffee cup and you weren't so nervous. And the same way the taxi test is a very limited way.
So most of them rely on actually and have for some time on quite detailed tests.
Chapter 3: How effective are psychological tests in hiring processes?
psychometric testing, psychological profiling, that these can go on for hours. You fill in various questions to drill down into your type of character and what sort of personality you have. So that's what most professional recruiters do. And they say the taxi test or the coffee cup test is a pretty crude way of doing it.
So when they do those psychological profiles, are the interviewers taking those or the recruiters into the interview and then they're quizzing you about the answers that you gave or the type of person that you seem to be as a result?
Exactly. That's exactly what they're doing. So they can work out. I mean, some is quite, you know, it's quite technical and possibly quite boring. It's working out whether you're good at decision making, whether you're instinctive or not, whether you're a team player or not. And supposedly in the same way that children are told that, you know, you can't you can't beat the system.
Supposedly, these are a true measure. They're overseen by the British Psychological Society. And these are I mean, it's hard to know how accurate you can really tell. someone's character or not, because, of course, you know, good people, people quite skilled at interviews are quite good at shielding, you know, parts of their personality.
Yeah, I'm sure you can learn how to take those psychological tests as well and do very well at them, you know, in the same way you can learn how to do an interview and do very well in the interview.
Yeah, yeah, indeed. And of course, another method which has become very popular in the last few years is hiring companies and there are specialist companies out there who will trawl through all your social media, all your online presence. I mean, it's sort of a very detailed due diligence.
This is only going to happen for moderately senior people you're going to hire, people at board level or people who have been paid a lot of money and you want to make sure you haven't made a terrible mistake.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of bringing your whole self to work?
And it's not necessarily checking you've said something idiotic when you were drunk one night or posting inappropriate photos. It's more to try and, again, analyze what sort of person you are, how well you interact with people, how angry you are. So this has become a big industry because people enter these jobs with now as much as 20 years' worth of history. It's all there online.
And it's no different from what private investigators often do when – Business people, if they're entering into a deal or a contract with someone, will hire a private investigator to trawl through this person to see whether they're legitimate or not.
Do we all bring our true selves to work, though? Our whole selves to work? Or just our work selves?
Well, this is this is the big thing. So the last few years, it's become incredibly fashionable to say you must bring your whole self to work and workplaces must encourage bringing your whole self to work. It's all about being authentic. And that's become a watchword. And if you say, actually, I'm not sure that's a good idea.
You are often cast as this awful bully who believes that if you are have any sort of disability or or you come from some minority, you should sort of quash work. And that's not what it's about. The backlash against authenticity and bringing your whole self to work is actually, you know what? I want you to bring your work self to work, your professional self to work.
You may be having a terrible time at home and we may be sympathetic about that, in which case probably stay at home. But don't come to work and start spouting off your political opinions, your view on any hot topic and saying, ah, I'm just being authentic.
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Chapter 5: Why might being 'authentic' in the workplace be problematic?
You know, it's like, no, this is a workplace. We have work to be done here.
Yeah, because as you say, I mean, you're not going to bring the person who is on the sofa on a Friday. You described the miserly, lazy, scruffy us that takes over after we've left the office at the end of the working week. So, I mean, that is our that is our whole that's part of our whole self. Right. But that's not the person you're going to be bringing into work on a Monday morning.
Yeah, we all, you know, we all endlessly spend our life. I think the modern, the younger generation, they use the language of actually, you know, the therapist couch. They would say masking. You know, we all mask ourselves in all sorts of situations.
You know, if you're if you're if you're you know, your child has died in some terrible accident, you go into the corner shop and a corner shop owner says, you know, hi, have a good day. You're not you're not going to say I've had a terrible day. You just realize that's just that's how society works. We all present different personalities in different situations.
And I think after a good sort of six or seven years, very much encouraged by Covid of saying, actually, we should bring our wholesales to work. Actually, no. Sometimes putting on a work mask is not a bad idea, partly because.
Most offices and most workplaces rely on kind of teamwork and it's all kind of slightly rubbing along and some vague consensus that this is how we make products, we sell our services and it would be better if we all agreed with that or at least we pretended to agree with that.
Well, your research though, I mean, I didn't see that you found much evidence that there's an appetite for not looking for the whole self or the true self from the recruiters.
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Chapter 6: How has AI changed the job application process?
Well, that's interesting. That is interesting. Yeah. I mean, those, but I think the whole thing about personality test when they work well, it's companies. And this is what I was told. It's not that we all want exactly the same person in the company. Obviously everyone's a bit different. And in fact, if we're hiring board level, we may have a gap. We may have lots of people who are
We may have lots of people who are very quick decision makers and not very good at empathy. So we need to fill that gap with someone with a bit more empathy, for instance.
And then you go through all of these tests, you go through all of the interviews and they give the job to somebody else, even though you brought your whole good, true self to the table and you still don't get the job. How is that explained?
Well, I think that's explained by the fact the job market is pretty terrible at the moment, and most people are finding it very hard to get jobs. And of course, part of this is to do with AI. It's never become easier to get AI to do the screening process. Most clever people then use AI to get around the screening process. You've got AI speaking to AI.
And you can fire off 100 now job applications in one day in a way that was impossible. And when I was starting out, you had to find an envelope and a stamp and go to the letterbox to send off your application.
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Chapter 7: What strategies can candidates use to navigate recruitment systems?
You've got these people saying, I sent off 500 applications. I haven't heard back from anyone. And that sounds awful. And it is awful in many ways. But were they 500 well-considered applications where you really thought, am I the right person for this job?
So this listener then who says the best classes to send your kids to are acting classes. Work behaviour is all about being on stage. The best stage actors at work perform the best and from my experience get promoted. That's fine once you're in the job.
But if you're trying to get recruited, you're saying you've got to know how to navigate these systems that the recruitment companies and the employers have set up.
Yes, yes. And some people recommend the old ways are the best ways, sometimes turning up in person in the lot, you know, working. Well, there's two ways. You either get the very old fashioned way, which is literally turning up to the office and the company you really want to work for. And you say, I really want to work for you and you work out who it is you need to speak to.
And most people will be quite impressed by that. And they won't think that's kind of weird. And they might give you the time of day to speak to you. But the other one is just to be a bit more intelligent. You can do this digitally.
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Chapter 8: How can networking effectively impact job searches?
You know, there's a lot of people recommend go. You can go around the back door. I mean, LinkedIn, lots of people loathe LinkedIn for very good reasons. But nearly every single company and every single executive is on there. So you work out who is the key person and you message them and say, I would love to meet you. Don't say, I want it necessarily. I want a job tomorrow.
But you can get in touch with people directly in a way that was far more difficult many years ago. So that is a possible way to get around all this endless screening and testing.
Yeah, it is a way. Just don't be creepy about it. It would be the advice, right? Don't stalk them on LinkedIn.
I get contacted quite a lot by people on LinkedIn. And usually they're polite messages, often by journalism students or what have you. And they say, can you spare 10 minutes of your time? OK, I can do that. That's no skin off my nose. And most people are nice people. And most people do. Most successful people, not by the way, just to be clear, I'm not suggesting I am.
But most successful people actually quite like the idea of helping people on the first rung of their career ladder. And so I'm always surprised by how reluctant young people are. Maybe they haven't been brought up in the world where they had to answer the telephone, but to pick up the telephone or even fire off a cold email is always worth a try.
Yeah, I always admire people who do it. You know, I think it is, it shows a level of initiative that I think, yeah, you probably are going to make it in some way, shape or other because you have the good sense to do what you've just done and reach out as long as it's not creepy.
Yes, yes. And it's quite easy to be not creepy. I think the simple message saying, I hope you don't mind me contacting you out of the blue, but I've always, you know, I admire your company. Or if you've done some homework and said, I really enjoyed reading that blog post of yours or I love the product that you've made.
Most people are thrilled, absolutely thrilled that they've got some positive feedback and they will not always. And, you know, you need a bit of persistence, but a lot of people will respond positively.
Harry, thanks so much. Great to talk to you. That's Harry Wallop there who's a columnist and journalist.
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