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I agree with most of your response to the "Interviewing
potential coworkers" thread. For sure, working style
and temperament are relevant factors in new candidates.
However, both are rather tough to pin down in an
interview, like an elusive bar of soap in the shower.
Candidate knowledge and capability are obviously very
important. So ... your group of writers agreed that
one particular soul was too intense for their liking
despite that criteria being rather amorphous too. OK.
Who can disagree that a group's "chemistry" should be
considered when it comes to taking new members into its
fold? I'm not meaning to be picky merely for the sake
of argument, but I find some of the criteria in your
posting to be elusive and inconclusive. In the end, I
presume the collective instinct of your group kicked in
and they reached the "too intense" verdict. However,
what assurance is there that any particular group of
individuals can be reasonably certain or objective
about the nature of their own chemistry?
Like you, and many others, I have spent plenty time on
both sides of the interview table in several careers.
I have been subject to, and party to, debate about
individual intensity and group chemistry. I find these
notions rather subjective, but nonetheless interesting.
Is it not possible that a large group of technical
writers might lack intensity, passion, chutzpah, or
that they regard the focus or dedication of one
individual as a threat? At the end of the interview
process, I usually wind up with a mix of subjective and
objective conclusions about the candidate, but the
final decision is largely driven by instinct (mine and
that of others).
A few years ago, I was once at the receiving end of a
"not a good fit" verdict. Who can argue with that, and
why would one bother anyway? You just move on. It is
not easy for the candidate to accurately assess a
group's chemistry in advance of an interview. At any
rate, who can say whether it is the group, the
interviewers, or the candidate who are/is in possession
of some negative quality that might lead to a "not a
good fit" conclusion? I cannot see a reason why I
would welcome a troublesome rebel (without a cause)
into my ranks, but I do not think it reasonable to fear
the intensity of others. Maybe some groups (or
individuals) need to be shaken up and have their
chemistry boat rocked once in a while.
IPCC 01, the IEEE International Professional Communication Conference,
October 24-27, 2001 at historic La Fonda in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.
CALL FOR PAPERS OPEN UNTIL MARCH 15. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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