I'm sitting right next to a guy taking a job interview at the coffee shop - I keep saying "D'Oh!"

[Rabrrrrrr]

He's a young college guy - he's doing well, but he occasionally says "um".

But what makes me cringe the most is the interviewer asks him a question, like "How would your friends describe you" or "what do you like doing" and so on, and he begins all the answers with "Well, I guess..."

Don't guess, dude - know. Know.

But, overall, he's doing a bangup good job - probably a business major, but not necessarily. If he finds a good teacher/mentor and does some practicing with talking getting rid of the ums and hestitations and the wishy washiness and show more confidence (which I'm sure he'll have gone in a few years), he could be quite the guy. He is already quite the guy.

It's times like this that I wish I could tag people in some way, so I could find out ten or twenty years later how they turned out. Every now and again I come across someone, a young person, that really makes me think "Wow - they're gonna go somewhere!"

He even said "thank you very much for the interview" at the end of it.

I'd hire him in a heartbeat.

[MrCoffee]

1. well, that's nice

did you tell him that?

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. I didn't want to interrupt the interview to give him pointers.

I don't think that would look good.

[MrCoffee]

3. after, man, after...you've got to choose your moment

be the mentor! teach young Skywalker the Jedi ways.

[Rabrrrrrr]

6. Sad thing was, within a nanosecond of shaking her hands, the guy had his texter in hand

and two seconds later, he was out the door.

[DS1]

4. Why do people ask those questions?

Who, if they were total hermit dicks (when they aren't eavesdropping in coffee shops) would tell the truth?

[Rabrrrrrr]

8. The questions were all canned bullshit questions, too -

nothing genuine, and all asking those kinds of silly questions.

Even though it's almost all high school and college kids working here, they could still ask stuff like "What is your greatest achievement" or "Tell me about something you did successfully" and those kinds of cool questions.

She was not a good interviewer - never a "Tell me more about that" or "I'm curious about what you said... let's go back..."

Read a question, get the response, read the next question, and so on.

[Dr_Funkenstein]

5. Strategy

He was probably trying to carefully craft a response that would NOT implicate the manager's daughter...

[LSK]

7. I thought that coffeeshop was destroyed?

Didnt you learn your lesson?

:D

[Dukkha]

9. Nowadays they'll probably make him do a second interview

It's ridiculous and frustrating how anal some businesses get now. It's just a freaking coffee shop job, which he obviously is overqualified and educated for and they'll still grill him like it's an exec VP position. The interview should just be "can you pour coffee? work a register? will you steal from it? can you show up on time? here's your apron"

[Rabrrrrrr]

10. When my dad interviewed at the factory back in the 50's

the question was "Can you start now?"

Dad said "Yes", and they took him back to the line and he started his job.

For the coffee shop kind of job, you're right - ridiculous questions, and ridiculous process. All I would do is sit down with the interviewee, see if they can actually speak English well enough and loud enough that customers could hear them, and if they have enough of a head on them that they won't fuck up pouring a coffee, and that they aren't psychotic. Ten minutes of general conversation would be enough.

[matcom]

11. sounds to me you want to hire him

Vitter-style

:P

[pagerbear]

12. I don't know about small businesses like coffee shops

....but in larger corporations recruiting is a tough job. Every interview has to be as close to identical as the interviewer can manage, at least for initial interviews. Not only do interviewers have to be extremely careful in their word choice and consistency--hence the scripted interviews--they also have to be on the lookout for candidates trying to trap them by exposing information that the interviewer legally can not consider in making any decisions. I'm sure in some corporations interviewers are discouraged from asking follow-up questions. Particularly in corporations where individuality is discouraged, such as chain fast-food restaurants.

This is not to excuse the poor lad his hesitations--I'm sure experience, confidence, and a good mentor will help him with that.

Also, I sort of had to giggle at your referring to "young people". Aren't you still under 30 yourself? :hi: