The Other Side of the Desk: Interviewers are people too

The other day I was sitting in the office, getting on with my work when the conversation turned to the upcoming interviews with prospective interns – intrigued I watched as the established members of staff debated who was going to have to do it and then googled interview questions to ask. It really brought home to me the rather obvious fact that interviewers are people too – most of them are just like you!

Pictures by Studio tdes via Flickr

Chances are that most people know somebody who has had to conduct interviews as part of their job from time to time – very few companies outside of huge multinationals hire people purely to hire and fire employees and the smaller the company, the lower down the chain of command the interviewer is likely to be as there will be fewer layers of management. As your career progresses – or your job hunt if you’re particularly unlucky – you will find yourself increasingly likely to be interviewed by somebody the same age as you, somebody who, outside of the interview room, you would likely consider a peer. Somebody just. Like. You.

So why is this grand realisation so important?

Well, firstly it helps even the playing field in your mind: it can be easy to imagine the person on the other side of the desk from you as a remote, all-powerful figure because they do, in fact, have the power to affect your future. What it is important to remember is that you have the potential to similarly affect their life in turn – whoever is hired after all will be the person they work with on a regular basis. Thought about this way, interviews become much less about a supplicant and a powerful figure and more of a negotiation – you are trying to convince them to invest in you as a person and they are trying to establish that you will provide the best possible return on their investment. If you treat the interview as an egalitarian transaction, you are likely to be more comfortable and confident and, as a result, more likely to get what you want out of the meeting.

Another consequence of realising that interviewers are people too is accepting that they are as subject to the whims of fate and the caprices of human emotion as anybody else. If your interview is on a day when their train has been late or they’ve just lost an important contract you are likely to fare worse in comparison to an interviewee on a different day purely by association with negative emotion. While there is nothing you can do to affect this, it does help with the realisation of just how many unknown variables there are in any hiring decision and how little part your value as an individual often plays in such decisions.

Something you do have control over however is your behaviour in the interview: it’s important to pay attention to the clues an interviewer drops about the kind of person they are. People are usually drawn to similar personality types so if your interviewer seems particularly outgoing or friendly, react accordingly; if they seem more reserved, make sure your demeanour mirrors theirs.

At the end of the day it is your interviewer as a person who makes the decision about you and so it is as a person that you need to visualise them when doing your interview preparation – make sure you treat them like a human being and remember that in a year or two it could be you sitting in the chair on the other side of the desk.

Looking for more interview advice? Take a look at Dressingto Impress , Interview Danger Zones and Ten Tips for Reducing Interview Stress.