Waiting For An Answer: I had an interview with a company that went really well and I was called back for a second interview to take place during the third week of August. Right before the interview, I received a call where I was told that my interview needed to be rescheduled but they did not know when. I was told they would call back with the rescheduled date. Does that sound like they have hired someone else?  Or could it mean something else?

HRLite Responds: Thanks, this is a great question. Not because we are very good at predicting the future, but because this is a question that we are frequently asked.

First, what we think does not really matter, although we will offer our opinion. The way you asked your question suggests that you have a need to know and don’t really need our guesses. That is, you desire feedback and will be nervously waiting until you get the answer. Many people share that trait, although some people would prefer to put off knowing. But wanting feedback is a desirable trait as feedback helps us to improve our performance.

So what matters is that you have a need to find out and the only way to find out is to go ahead and call them and ask what is going on. There is nothing wrong with calling and asking as long as you handle it in a professional manner.

Write out ahead of time what you would like to say. Say something along the lines of: “Hello, my name is Waiting. I was supposed to have a second interview in August but it was cancelled and I was told I would be contacted later. I am very interested in interviewing for this position, so I was calling to see about setting up that second interview. I am planning my schedule for the next several weeks. I was very interested in this job and excited about the opportunity to work for you company. So I wanted to make sure I left time to schedule a second interview with you so I could avoid any potential conflicts and give full consideration to your job and your company.” 

Be polite but confident.

Of course, be prepared to hear “we are sorry a date has still not yet been picked.” You can then respond with “I understand, please call me when you have a date and time, if I do not hear from you I will call you back in two weeks to see if there is any additional information.” You also have to be prepared to hear that the job has been filled.

Second, now we will tell you what we think. There are many reasons you may not have been called back yet for the second interview. It would appear that you did well enough on the first interview that it was not your background or performance, so that means it could be that:

• The job never really existed. It is amazing how many times this is true. Many times companies may interview for an opening that does not exist. The opening may not exist for budgetary reasons or the company may just be trying to get an idea of the market.
• The job was filled by an insider, a demotion, a promotion, or some other unplanned internal action. Or the job incumbent may have decided not to leave or retire.
• The job was eliminated due to budgets or downsizing.
• The person you were scheduled to interview with may not be available because they are on vacation or they got busy. It was the end of summer and the beginning of the school year; these are busy times for organizations. In some cases a team is needed for an interview, and this makes scheduling even more difficult.
• Another person was identified and they made a quick offer.
• Our guess would be that something unexpected occurred totally unrelated to your qualifications. However, whether that means the position will eventually be filled, we could not guess on that one.

I just got back from Boston where I attended the American Psychological Association Meeting. 15,000 psychologists together in Boston.

I had to attend quite a few administrative meetings, but I also presented a poster. The poster was actually presented along with my coauthors, Kevin Mahoney, Jeffrey Walczyk, and Diana Griffiths-Ross of Louisiana Tech University. It dealt with the topic of detecting dishonesty during the employment interview and with an alternative to the polygraph.

People are not always truthful. During the employment interview, organizations are interested in detecting two different types of dishonesty. First, they are interested in identifying those individuals who might engage in questionable behavior on the job. Second, they are interested in identifying those people who lie about their background or abilities during the interview itself. Our paper, and the method described in the paper, dealt with the latter.

Basically, Jeff Walczyk has developed a cognitive lie detector which is based upon response time. This cognitive lie detector is called Time Restricted Integrity Confirmation or TRI-Con. TRI-Con is designed to maximize cognitive load on liars, minimize it on truth tellers, and expose load-reducing countermeasures. Bottom line, lying takes time and thus, in theory, you can detect lying by measuring how long it takes to respond to questions. In the past, we have demonstrated that response times can discriminate truth tellers from both rehearsed and unrehearsed liars with 75% to 90% accuracy. Unfortunately, as with many things, additional research with the method is required. Also, it probably takes even higher rates of accuracy to have sufficient confidence to label someone as dishonest.

And maybe I should add “Remember to think about where you will be working, before you dress for an interview.”

As interviewer’s, we all try to concentrate on job related behaviors, but some applicants make that an impossible task. I once had a candidate with a pierced nose for one of my teaching positions. During the interview, I kept thinking, “How does she blow her nose? Why did she choose that nose ring?” The nose ring was so distracting, I could not remember a single thing she said, all I could remember was the nose ring. For all I know her answers were wonderful and she would have been a great teacher, but all I saw was a bad fit, especially for a Catholic school with a strict dress code.

Recently, my son, a college freshman, was assigned the book Blink, authored by Malcolm Gladwell. I saw the book and decided it would make a good addition to my summer reading list. After finishing the book, I would highly recommend it to anyone in human resources or involved in interviewing job candidates.

Blinkdescribes how people make snap or first gut impressions and Gladwell refers to this phenomenon as Thin Slicing.  Thin-slicing is taking a small, narrow slice of behavior and reaching a conclusion about future behavior – all within an instant or the time it takes to blink.

Without realizing it, we as interviewers, engage in thin slicing all the time. As soon as an applicant walks into the office for an interview, she is being evaluated. Did she arrive on time? What is she wearing? Does she look nervous or confident? Is she a leader or a follower?

I realized that even though it goes against everything I have been taught about interviewing, I thin slice all the time. I do try to gather information from many different sources and then carefully weigh and evaluate the information. But, I also know I develop gut instincts concerning who will fit and who will not fit.

Surprisingly, that judgment made in that blink moment does predict future job performance. So, our gut instincts do have value. However, sometimes these judgments can be very wrong. Therefore, it is important that we develop interviewing skills and attempt to carefully gather and weigh job related information in the interview process.

The Super Bowl Interview Ad. More fun with this ad can be found at mytalkingstain.com