Are you unique or just along for the ride?
A
candidate posted a question on a bulletin board asking the best way to approach
the common scenario of being given an order on an emergency scene that puts my
life, or others in jeopardy that may also go against standard operating
procedures.
Someone posted and answer that looked like it came right out of one of the books
out there with question and suggested answers. Turns out it was word for word
from one of those books!
My
reply: . . . . Too many will use these suggested answers word for word like
someone posted here. If I picked this right up so can other panel members.
Panel members can often tell by the 2nd or third question where the candidate
got their answers. A fire academy (where they practice using 3 X 5 cards),
college classes, medic school, a book or CD’s. It makes the candidate look and
sound like a clone of too many others. We experience this talking to a lot of
candidate’s daily and during one on one coaching.
So it’s your second day of 8 days of oral interviews as a panel member. You’re
hearing too many candidates with the same answers, sameness, identical answers
word for word complete with pauses from the CD’s. You wonder who really owns the
information and experience. It can be mind numbing for panel members.
One candidate just told me after taking 11 tests and not getting hired that he
felt this type of one size fits all format of using suggested answers was like
reading a personal diary. He said he got our
Special offer program
3 weeks
ago and changed to being more personable, more of who he is and feels unique,
fresh or spontaneous. His first interview since he switched he’s made it into
the hiring process.
Here’s our son Captain Rob’s take:
Let me put it to you this
way. If you read a book that gives you the answers, you are not going to sound
like you. You will sound like the person that wrote the book. Not only that, but
because you didn’t come up with the answer on your own, what if they ask you to
explain you reasoning in doing what you did? You don’t know because it wasn’t
your answer.
Another problem could be that if you are quoting answers from a book you read or
a person who taught a class, others may be quoting it also. What if you are in
the oral interview for you dream department, the one you have waited for your
whole life, and after your second response they stop you. They tell you that it
is funny but the three people before you have answered every question word for
word the same as you, and they want to know if they are going to get to hear
your answers or should they just give you the score they gave to others?
I would sure want to be giving my own original answers and not something someone
else gave me as their answer. If you can find a way to come up with your own
answers it will also help you if they ask questions that you have never heard
before. Because you will have figured out how to come up with your own answers,
not look up answers.
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