<p>I have a question. At an interview I had recently, I received a question similar to this:</p>
<p>"Give me an example of a time that you encountered obstacles but able to overcome them and be successful".</p>
<p>I answered the question by using a situation from a previous job, where I was a project manager, and put in charge of groups of students. The issues I talked about having to deal with were the students not respecting my authority (I was on the same pay grade, and they knew it), and that many of the students were smokers and would just up and leave (in the middle of work) when they needed a smoke break. Onto this, I added that my direct supervisor would sometimes stop in to help us, and that she herself was a smoker, and would also take smoke breaks, nearly destroying the job I had done convincing the other employees to wait until lunch to smoke. I then said that through all that, I kept the group together, and convinced them to not only go along with what I was saying, but also wait for smoke breaks, and that in the end we were successful.</p>
<p>In hind sight I realized mentioning my boss may have been one of the cardinal sins of interviews - bad mouthing a former boss. But was it? I didn't say she was an idiot for leaving on a smoke break. I only used it as an example of a time when I encounter a difficult situation and was successful. Anyways, I'd like your opinion. Was including the situation about the supervisor fine? Or did I flush the interview down the toilet?</p>
<p>It is ABSOLUTLEY a huge sin of an interview. You told them that your BOSS was interrupting you and messing with your work. It takes only one comment about a boss like you made to derail an interview. Learn from the mistake and move on.</p>
<p>I see your point. However, everything else went very well, including communication after the interview. I guess it just depends on how much they read into answers, or if they interpreted what I said as negative or just a description of a tough situation… So I’ll just wait and see I suppose.</p>
<p>it’s generally not advisable… that said, you should be able to use this example again, but instead of supervisor, say “well meaning co-worker” or something like that.</p>
<p>Haha. Yeah. That’s what I was thinking actually - that I may be over-thinking it. The engineer who was present (two people interviewed me) actually agreed (that my supervisor doing that would be a difficult position to be in). So either they were agreeing passively (not really with any thought behind it) and could look negatively on it later. Or they just didn’t think anything of it.</p>
<p>You won’t know how they reacted to it until after the recruiting process for that company ends. If you get an offer, you know they were okay with it; if you do not get an offer, you should make sure to do what many people do not: ASK THEM WHY!</p>
<p>I found that when I interviewed but was declined for the job, recruiters are very open to explaining why you didn’t get the job. For example, one company thought that, based on my background and interview answers, I may go to law school after a year, and they didn’t want to have someone who would potentially take the money and run. I learned from that experience and was able to show later recruiters that law school was not, in fact, a serious consideration of mine.</p>
<p>Are you kidding? An interview is an opportunity to pick up the personality of the applicant. The interviewer’s strategy is to search for positives and negatives in an answer. Talking about an old boss is one of the things that goes at the top of the notes as a negative. Look up interviewing tips. You will see time after time people saying do not EVER bring up your old boss in ANY negative way.</p>
<p>So essentially a mainstream interviewer wants one of two things:
a) Someone who will do their best to be dishonest (though perhaps not unethically dishonest since mainstream business ethics encourage dishonesty in this case) and will withhold critical facts from an on-topic answer to a direct question, even if the facts can be presented (as the OP did) in a non-hostile, non-personal manner.
b) Someone who will naturally never disagree with or have a problem with their superiors under any circumstances.</p>
<p>People who are not <em>naturally</em> A or B will have greater difficulty maintaining that attitude from beginning to end of an interview while still presenting a positive, though honest image of theirself. It may still be easy, but they are obviously going to have more difficulty than someone who is naturally A or B. Someone might be an expert in a foreign language but it is likely they still find it easier to speak their native language. So when someone slips up like the OP, and doesn’t do it in an intentionally bad way, it is indicating that:
They are not naturally and easily dishonest.
That they are capable of independent thinking and identifying problems instead of always having to be told what the problems are after-the-fact.</p>
<p>On the other hand, people that belong to the opposite of those two types are going to be very bad for business, unless the business is of a particularly unethical type that thrives on dishonesty with those with which it interacts.</p>
<p>So no, i’m not kidding. If someone did not intentionally attack their boss, but was just honestly describing a problem/disagreement (and was doing it an adequately objective manner) I wouldn’t hold it against them if I was an interviewer. And I think by not doing that I would end up with better hires overall. Every universal “rule” is going to allow bad people in, whether the rule automatically gives people an advantage or disadvantage. I think this rule overall lets more bad people in and keeps more good people out.</p>
<p>As I pointed out in my first post though, just because I stand by my opinion that anyone that would give the OP a big minus because of that one incident (if it was how it was described) is an idiot, would it be a good idea for people to do the same, expecting most would think the same? No.</p>
<p>You guys are really over thinking this. Interviewers look for traits and do not over analyze your stories. In fact, they forget all of your stories 3 minutes after you leave the room. </p>
<p>One important trait people look for, especially in junior level employees, is the ability to impact or influence others without direct authority over them. A good example to the above case would be a situation where a superior is undermining the OP and the OP has to influence the superior to change his or her behavior without any authority to do so.</p>
<p>Saying something negative about a boss is not “ABSOLUTLEY a huge sin” as long as it is relevant to the discussion. Going on a tangent about his B.O. would be a problem, however.</p>