Be Mindful of the Random People Around Your Interview Area, and Fellow Interviewees Themselves!

Be mindful of the random people around your interview area, and fellow interviewees themselves. Refrain from being rude, and complain about life. They could be one of the assessors/interviewers without you knowing

This happened to me twice in a row in an interview for my current work and previous work.

Previous work: We were in a group of 5. We all gathered together and started talking about life, etc. This girl started to then complain about her life, how she only applied for the job cause her friend said it’s easy money.

She actually did very well in the tests and interviews. Me and another person got the offer though, and to our surprise, one of the interviewee was actually the hiring officer/HR manager. He mentioned that it’s how they assess if candidates are genuine and a good person to work with, since a lot of people put a fake persona during an interview.

Current work: This work is very customer centric, so the key focus is obvsly customer service. Anyway, there were 10 of us in a group interview. We did an office tour, and we stopped for a quick morning tea. Our assessor left us along to have morning tea, so we all started talking.

Some random person entered the area to make coffee (we assumed he’s a worker there) and basically just talked and talked and TALKED, oh my god. One of my fellow interviewees, clearly annoyed, said “fuck off”.

Welp. Turned out that he’s my current manager.

Anyway, be mindful of these things. Especially on interviews for jobs that are a bit customer focused. Many companies are getting creative with their interviews these days, and not just the general 1 on 1 interviews (or group interviews).

Also, those people may raise a provocative topic/sensitive topic such as politics (my friend just told me a similar thing happened, but the snitch talked about politics and people got aggro from it). Don’t engage or be rude, even if you disagree. Remember you’re in for an interview, not for a debate. Just say “Look, I’d love to talk about this but I’m focusing on the interview”.