random things about interviewing...

A friend recently forwarded the article talking about google's hiring process.  It talked about how employees who didn't do well during the interview ended up doing better than employees who did well during the interview.
It's very interesting because our pharmacy school was thinking about using an diagnostic test to screen students and use it as a part of an admission process.  Although I don't know how the result is yet, but I really disagree with the process. I just don't think you can evaluate a person based on a single test and used it as an important criteria.  A person is much more than a number.
Maybe it is about time for us to define " what is an interview?"
At least for me, an interview is a chance for both sides to learn more about one another.  It's not a one way process.  It has to be two ways.  How would a test be able to determine whether a person is compatible with the company?  How would a test develop by outside company be used to determine whether a person should be employed at a different company?  It is so irrelevant.  A test does not tell you much about a person.  If accurate, it might tell you whether a person belongs to the norm population in which the test was developed.  that's all it can say.  It doesn't tell you much about a person's personality or anything else.  You have to see a person and believe in what you feel about a person before making any judgement.
I think a lot of companies are deviating from this process.
If you want a problem solver, gives them a problem.  If you want a technical writer, let them write.
I went and interviewed at one of the schools in 2008.  Writing is an important skill that everyone should learn and be good at.  I understand this.  Quite a few number of school require writing assessment during the interview process.  It's understandable.  However, the writing assessment has not caught up to date with what is happening in the real world!  They assess our writing technique by making us write on paper.  Guess what? This represented many problems!  First: if your hand writing is bad, you are probably looked at as one of those who couldn't write straight.  Second: if your hand writing is incomprehensible, the readers can't understand what you write.  Third: it's so old-school. I understand we should learn how to write with pencil and pen, but writing essay with pencil and pen is unnecessary in this stage of age. The admission committee used hand written essays as a way to evaluate people.  Then later told me that a large percentage of students could not write even with computer!  Okie seriously... maybe they should ask student to write with pens and papers because it will be correlating well with the admission criteria.  So my suggestion would be: evaluating writing skill with what you will be requiring students to do in school.
Same thing should happen when people are interviewed for jobs.  Need to know what a person should know what to do, test them that!  Don't be a robot and put a number in front of a person and identify a person or characterize a person by this number... we are human not robot!

I think trusting your instinct... and your feeling about the place maybe the best way to evaluate.  Sometimes you just need that in order to determine whether it will be a good fit.

So I'm excited about my interview today at the DI department in the hospital.  I have good feeling about people who work there.  They are so friendly and understanding.  ^-^  Hopefully I will be able to intern there next semester. :)