Several years ago, I found myself looking for a job. I had lost my position as a Strategic Alliance Manager traveling up and down the Eastern Seaboard working for a large corporation and was faced with the prospect of no income.
I was married to a narcissist and had two small children. She refused to work and informed me I should work for Walmart during the day and Home Depot in the evening until another fabulous Fortune 500 company came banging on the door looking for me.
My weekly travel schedule had allowed me to avoid many face-to-face arguments with the narc. I would phone her after landing in my city du jour and she would explain how the house had several structural problems that I was avoiding, and my mother is a bitch.
The problem was that the entire hotel could hear how I shirked my responsibility as the man of the house, came from a terrible family, and only cared about earning a living.
Working from my home office gave the narc the ability to interrupt my job search whenever she saw fit. “Are you aware the water bill is due next week? My Am Ex card is due and how are you planning on paying the mortgage? All you do is sit here, playing games on that stupid computer. Oh, and do not think I didn’t hear that last call you were laughing on with your cousin because this is all one big joke isn’t it? What do you care if I am out shopping and my card is declined? Or what about the water? How are you planning on paying for the car? I cannot believe I married you. You are such a waste.”
“Well, that’s ego building. With her motivational speeches I should either be employed or dead by next week,” I thought while watching her depart.
I stroked my unshaven chin and looked back at my computer screen. I had multiple job sites open. I looked at Walmart. “$10/per hour. Store greeter. Must have perpetual smile, khaki pants, and an ability to stand for long periods of time. Multiple shifts. Six days per week.”
“I wish she would do the math. If I take it and am accepted the eighty bucks a day will go directly to her and I still can’t pay the mortgage. Besides one look at my resume and they’ll know that upon being offered a sales job, I am going to quit. But if I take the job, I will be too tired to continue my job search. But, wait, Oh, that’s right, I’m getting a second job at Home Depot where they are dying for me to show up. The former sales rep, now greeting customers at Walmart looking for a night job with no skill set in home improvement. Maybe unemployment will work for now.”
The job search continued
The economy and workforce looked like they were getting back on track. I received an e-mail later that week from the administrator of a CEO of a software corporation in Broward County. He was interested in me to manage his sales team.
The e-mail continued by asking if I would be available for a phone interview in the next two days. Within minutes of replying, the second of my two dates was accepted. “He will reach out to you on a video call Tuesday at 2:00 PM. Please allot twenty minutes. We like to keep Mr. Smith (I changed his name because after not receiving the offer, I don’t want to mention it) on schedule.”
In other words, keep my answers short and to the point. “Ah,” I thought, “It’s a test. Make sure you are accountable, cognizant, and respectful.”
I set up my clock in front of a notebook filled with questions and answers. I did not want to seem nervous so no reason not to have information on me and him staring me in the face.
The interview could not have gone better. His questions were predictable (tell me about yourself, if hired tomorrow how could you bring us the needed revenue from your sales team?) and at 2:20 I said that I wanted to be respectful of his time. I was only allotted twenty minutes and would only continue if he wished to do so, which he did.
Things went so well, he said that he looked forward to next steps, which I assumed was a face-to-face meeting.
Later that afternoon, I was made aware of next steps. I received an e-mail from the same administrator who sent the first one. She congratulated me for keeping Mr. Smith on schedule and for moving forward to the next phase of the interview process.
She explained I would be receiving a link shortly and to allow twenty minutes from the time I click on it. She also suggested I do not click unless I am in a quiet room and totally focused.
Unless I locked myself in my car, there is no way the narc would allow this.
Early the next morning, I received my link. Before I clicked on it, I received an e-mail from the company explaining the link. “The Wonderlic Personnel Test (formerly known as the Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test) is a popular group intelligence test used to assess the aptitude of prospective employees for learning and problem-solving in a range of occupations.”
“Great, just great,” I thought. “The test is a sort of IQ test used to measure NFL rookie’s aptitude for learning and problem solving. The average football player scores around 20 points and scoring at least 10 points suggests a person is literate. At least that’s what they said on SportsCenter. Oh, and it’s timed. I’m gonna be the first person in history to score a zero.”
The narc allowed me my twenty minutes. I must have stared at that screen for ten minutes before clicking. I hate tests. All tests. Spelling tests. Reading tests. Math tests. Driving tests. Tests are all about how you are judged. The CEO who only yesterday had a terrific conversation with me, was not going by his gut and meeting me. He was going to see what my aptitude was on a timed test.
“People like me until they find out about that aptitude thing. Well, maybe the narc’s right.”
I learned afterward that it’s like taking the SAT’s. It’s a standardized test, with its questions in an open response format that becomes increasingly more difficult as you progress. The types of questions include: analogies, analysis of geometric figures, arithmetic, direction following, disarranged sentences, judgment, logic, proverb matching, similarities, and word definitions
I clicked. I was greeted by, “The Wonderlic Personnel Test (WPT-R) helps measure general mental ability, widely accepted as being one of the single best predictors of job success. It helps measure a candidate’s ability to understand instructions, learn, adapt, solve problems, and handle the mental demands of the position.”
“Terrific. Let’s get this show on the road,” I said.
Here are two sample questions they give before you move forward. That allows the test taker ample time to scream for mercy prior to moving forward.
- If a piece of rope cost 20 cents per 2 feet, how many feet can you buy for 30 dollars?
- Which of the numbers in this group represents the smallest amount? a) 0.3 b) 0.08 c) 1 d) 0.33
Now, if you ask me either of those questions, let’s say the first while standing on my driveway and using my fingers, with no time limit I would probably figure it out. But sitting at my desk, nerves running at an all-time high, I used a scrap piece of paper and the entire process cost me three minutes. My answer of 300 was correct but even I can do this math. 50 questions with 12 minutes to answer and 3 minutes on the first leaves me with 9 minutes to answer 49 questions or don’t bother learning the address of the new company.
When the twelve minutes were up, I could no longer answer any more questions. The test was locked. I was three for three. I correctly answered the three questions that I attempted.
Not a wonerlic god
I never heard from the company. I learned that Ryan Fitzpatrick, owner of the best beard in the NFL, a journeyman quarterback who graduated Harvard and has played for numerous NFL franchises, scored a 48 out of 50, the highest of anyone to take the test. I am certain I did not take his title.
Within four weeks my job search netted me three job opportunities. No tests. Only interviews, I was offered a technical sales management position for a middleware company and I accepted.
Standardized tests do not tell the whole story!
I don’t know. I have two terrific sons did who did well enough on their SAT’s to get into very good colleges as well as the rest of my life ahead of me. I no longer laugh when I hear how someone performed poorly on a standardized test, failed to pass the bar, or did not pass their CPA exam.
I have been called humorous, sarcastic, loving, caring, curious, lazy, and stupid. Those came from my parents who never once over the course of the past forty years discussed my SAT scores. They just went by face value. For better or worse, my parents were smart enough to know, if I worked at something that I wanted, I could accomplish it with a little positive re-enforcement from them.
The narc never understood. “Lazy. Moron. Selfish. Idiot. Loser.”
Those were for starters. I listened to her daily telling me how I was a failure and embarrassment to her for the next two months. It dawned on me that I did have two jobs. The first was a successful job search. The second was the night job of washing the dishes and vacuuming the kitchen after the narc was done cooking and we were done eating. That second job came with constant reinforcement of how difficult I was making her life and that she was entitled to so much more than a jerk like me. The latter part of my second job was known to go way into the morning hours.
I have often thought about the phone interview with that CEO. “Why was it so important to see my aptitude on a piece of paper and use that as the basis to move forward on an interview. Why was he afraid to meet me and hire me if he thought I was the right fit?”
Other methods
I interviewed in the winter of 1985 for a job that I knew nothing about. I had to take the Long Island Railroad to Penn Station and then a subway downtown. It was snowing and there was at least two inches on the ground.
No tests. No phone interview. I warmed up as I walked into the elevator, spoke with the receptionist who hung up my overcoat, and quietly waited to meet with the hiring manager.
Nine years later, the manager, who was now the Vice President of Sales, spoke about my first interview with him.
“Before you walked into my office, I made up my mind I was offering you the job. You commuted for over two hours on one of the coldest days of the years, took two trains, and walked into the office with a smile. You were polite and sat without saying a word while I purposely kept you waiting.”
And that is how an interview should be conducted.