By the time the afternoon interviews arrive, my patience is painfully thin, and I just cannot take another saccharine-sweet response to generic group process questions. However, with each new applicant, I am faced with an abundance of politically correct, rehearsed answers. Despite the large number of diverse students I have interviewed throughout the years, I have discovered and catalogued three types of bad interviewees (hey, I have to do something to keep myself awake).
Student #1 rambles incessantly about the professor they
argued with over a grade, the roommate they constantly fought with over a
drunken crush, and the parent who refused to buy them an iPad 2 for Christmas. Their
diatribes are rich with syllables, but poor on substance. Student #2 provides
very little material beyond, “I love people and I love to help people. I would be
a great RA, because my RA was such an influence my first year”. Their answers make
me fantasize about sticking my pencil into my cornea in order to escape the
banality of the interview.
Finally, the third type of bad interviewee is my favorite!
They are usually one of the last ones of the day, making their interview a combination
of punch-drunk exuberance and self-pity (for me). When asked why they want to
be an RA, they admit stupidly, “I need full room and board, because my
financial aid is too low this semester”. When asked about their weaknesses,
they answer with the standard “I don’t have any” or “I work too hard”. Finally,
when asked about their experience with diversity, they reference that one time
they accidentally drove through Harlem or when they had a roommate they knew
was a “closeted gay” since he had every episode of Glee on Blu-Ray.
No matter how many times I mark “do NOT hire” on all
three types of applications, they somehow make it onto a staff. Our weak group
process continuously fails to weed out the slackers, the users, or the liars; but,
at least they are qualified to create a sticky pasta bridge on the fly.
Oh how I love the marshmallow bridges...If you can't make a bridge out of food, how do you expect to bebable to help new freshman adapt to college.
ReplyDeleteI also get frustrated when professional staff put down a emphatic "DO NOT HIRE," and when it comes down to it, people get desperate, make excuses, and then we end up hiring people who are COMPLETELY wrong for job (marshmallow bridge building non-withstanding.)
ReplyDeleteFrom my time as an RA, I believed strongly that group process is a waste of time that doesn't measure anything. If anything it actually discriminates against introverts. For a decade, I held the goal that one day I would wipe group process from the face of the earth. I came across a textbook called "Staffing Organizations" by Herbert Heneman, which gave me all the ammunition I needed to convince higher-ups that group process needed to go. Then, I got promoted to an Assistant Director job at another institution and found myself in charge of RA Selection. The first thing to go way group process. I applaud anyone who seeks to take down this silly practice. It is a waste of time and predictive of nothing.
ReplyDelete