Interviewing in public: what I witness in coffee shops makes me cringe

Coffee shops are often described as peoples’ “third space”—after their home and workplace. 

Simon Sinek, the author of Start With Why, wrote the following about these places where people hang out between work and home

“Starbucks was founded around the experience and the environment of their stores. Starbucks was about a space with comfortable chairs, lots of power outlets, tables and desks at which we could work, and the option to spend as much time in their stores as we wanted without any pressure to buy. The coffee was incidental.”

For some, including me, coffee shops have become more than a place to hang out.  They are where we go to work. Most of what you read in Briefly Noted was written in a Second Cup near the University of Alberta.

This may seem a little strange. You would think that I would write more if I sealed myself
away somewhere quieter, where I would be free from interruptions.

I’ve tried that, but it just doesn’t work. 

I require two essential ingredients that coffee shops provide: the energy of strangers and the opportunity to people-watch and be inspired by what I see.

There is always a mix of people and activity. At one table, a group of students may be working on a class project. Others are completing an individual project or studying with a classmate. Friends and co-workers meet for conversation over a drink. Individuals sit alone, reading or surfing the Internet. Some even appear to be napping.

Some people come to the coffee shop to meet each other for the first time. This includes those who are there for job interviews, even though a coffee shop is not the most conducive setting for this activity.

Ideally, interviews should be conducted in a private space that is quiet and interruption-free, which hardly describes a busy coffee shop, with its background music, conversations at nearby tables and a steady flow of customers purchasing drinks to go.

Not that I’m going to chase them away. Their presence provides opportunities for me to observe how others conduct interviews. What I have seen, more often than not illustrates how not to conduct interviews.

A common mistake interviewers make is to talk too much, so much at times that it becomes difficult to determine who is the interviewer and who is being interviewed.

What I overheard as one interview was conducted at the next table led me to conclude that the most dangerous question an interviewer can ask is, “Do you have any questions for me?” unless the interviewer has anticipated what might be asked and is well-prepared to respond. Ad libbing responses can lead interviewers to talk too much and shift the focus onto themselves. 

Given an opportunity by an interviewer, a young jobseeker masterfully assumed control of the interview. She asked questions that encouraged the interviewer to talk about himself—a topic he seemed to enjoy—when he should have used the time to learn more about her.

Sometimes the candidate doesn’t need to do anything to get the interviewer to talk.

Recently, I was next to a table when an interview began. The interviewer appeared ill-prepared for the interview. He didn’t know what he should do. There was no list of questions to ask. No process to follow.

It was a conversation about the job, during which he did the most of the talking. There were few opportunities for the candidate to talk about her background, what she had done in previous jobs, or why he should hire her.

What she did say was not in response to questions, but to what he said about the job, the company and himself. He spent more time selling the job and expressing confidence in her ability to do the job than she was allowed to do about herself.

I don’t know if either of these jobseekers received a job offer. If they did, it may have been because the interviewers were so impressed by what the jobseekers encouraged the interviewers to say about themselves that they decided to “hire themselves.” Of course that would be impossible, so they did the next best thing and hired the candidates. They hired themselves, but the women received the paycheques.

I suspect each of these guys were decent fellows and had done their jobs well in the past, leading to a promotion that now required them to hire. Unfortunately, no one had prepared them for the task.

Frequently, the candidate is better prepared for the interview than the person with a position to fill. Jobseekers take courses, watch videos and read books to prepare to be interviewed.

Managers and others who hire need to do as much as the candidates, to prepare themselves to interview.

If you are responsible for hiring, get some training. Attend a workshop. Read a few books on the subject. Be better prepared the next time you interview.

Hiring the right people is the most important task any leader does. The goal of every interview is to select people with the potential to become top performers. These are the people who will make your organization successful.

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Participants in my Interview Right to Hire Right workshops acquire skills to prepare them to make better hiring decisions, including identifying job requirements, writing and asking interview questions, checking references, making job offers and getting the new hire off to a good start. Email nmscott@telus.net or call (780) 232-3828 to learn more or to schedule training for your team.