We’re in the middle of election season and the race for the White House. When you’re deciding between McCain and Obama, perhaps it would help if you treated the election like what it really is: a job interview.
Sometimes the questions the candidates are asked are ridiculous (boxers or briefs), and sometimes the answers the candidates give are ridiculous (they misunderestimated me!). But are these examples that different from actual experiences we’ve all had in interviews, or from questions that Dwight asked Andy during his interview for the Assistant to the Regional Manager job when they thought Michael Scott was leaving? (What is the best color? How do you make a table? What is the capital of Maine?) Well, maybe.
Nevertheless, when your company is conducting interviews, it is important to give the process the attention it deserves, prepare, and not ask any questions that you’re not allowed to (e.g., are you planning on having more kids?). Hopefully, our interviewers are all staying within the law, but too often companies put little thought into interviews, hoping that the best candidate just appears out of nowhere. This really doesn’t make any sense, considering the company’s future rests in the people who will be running it someday.
Encourage everyone to put some thought into their questions; and keep everyone informed of what they are allowed to say and not say during an interview to ensure your company isn’t open to a discrimination claim later. If you can do these two things, maybe you, too, will end up with someone like Ryan running your company someday. Before he fell off the deep end.
