Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Most job interviews center on one question, “What do you know?” Here’s a suggestion for a new central question, “Can you learn?”

I don’t like job interviews. The folks interviewing me are usually quite pleasant. They want to know what I know. The central question is, “What do you know?”

That question is asked in many different ways including:

• Can you color in the lines?
• How many colors have you used in a coloring book?
• Describe a situation in which you led a team of folks trying to color a coloring book.

In order to answer all the questions in a good manner, you have to already work at the place. That place is unique as all places of employment are unique. They use a specific set of tools in a specific manner to do a specific thing. If you are specific to the third power, that indicates that you already work in that place.

Since all work places are unique, new employees have to learn the specific, specificity, specificness of that place. Huh? Oh, new employees have to learn. Every single new employee has to learn.

Hence, my suggestion for a central question, “Can you learn?”

The job interview now is about learning if the applicant can learn. This requires new questions. Describe an invented workplace; describe invented things, and determine if the applicant learned all this.

This is different. Hence, it is difficult (at first). Try it.