Page 75 - 301 Best Questions to Ask on Your Interview, Second Edition

THE RULES OF THE GAME

First, when you are in conversation with someone, it is polite
to pay attention to that person. Taking notes, to these coaches, is
impolite.

Second, some job coaches argue that taking notes makes inter-
viewers defensive, as if you are collecting evidence for a potential
lawsuit. The last thing a job candidate wants to do is make the inter-
viewer nervous.

Third, these critics suggest that if a candidate whips out a set of
notes during an interview, the recruiter might conclude that the can-
didate has a problem with short-term memory or with thinking on
his or her feet.

“I coach my candidates not to take notes during the interview
because if you are taking notes you can’t listen with complete atten-
tion,” says a career coach with Bernard Haldane Associates in Dal-
las, Texas. One downside is that note taking exacerbates the natural
human condition of self-deception. “We often hear a question the
way we want to hear it instead of the way the interviewer actually
asked it,” she says. Candidates risk appearing evasive if they respond
to the question they imagine was asked instead of the one that was
actually asked. For example, one interviewer told me that he rou-
tinely asks the following question:

On what occasions are you tempted to lie?

The interviewer recalls a candidate who seemed preoccupied with
taking notes and seemed to write the question down. But in his
response, the candidate seemed to respond to the question, “On
what occasions do you lie?” The question that was actually asked
demanded more nuance of the candidate. It’s important to listen to
the question that was actually asked.

When he is considering applicants for senior management posi-
tions, Tom Thrower, general manager of Management Recruiters,
a recruiting firm in Oakland, California, prefers candidates who
display total professional self-assurance. To Thrower, note taking
detracts from an expression of overwhelming organizational con-
fidence. “I’m interested in people with good memories,” he says. “I
find it distracting watching applicants take notes.”

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