Good manners;
politeness; consideration of others; those are some of the reasons the job
interview issue mentioned in this article will rarely see the light of day in
any forum.
And hope the
observations cited herein -- regarding why someone may not get hired in a
timely fashion and why those job seekers rarely hear back from an employer
after they interview -- are never associated with you - even when such
job candidates bring excellent skills and job know-how into their job
interview.
In fact, this job
interview issue is so destructive to a job search it is more akin to dropping
solid human waste into the middle of a birthday party. Is that too strong an
image to evoke? Well... keep reading and decide for yourself.
No, I am not speaking
of job search issues such as offering an HR rep a poor resume (which is bad
enough on its own), or being late to a job interview, or choosing the wrong
garb, or not researching a potential employer prior to a job interview. No, the
issue I speak of here will rarely - if ever --come to the
attention of the job seeker who allows this damaging job interview issue to
prevail.
"Did he smell
like poop to you?"
Don't laugh. This
author has attended thousands of job interviews. Far too many of them held me
captive inside a small-to-medium sized office where, when the door was closed
for privacy, a stale beefy odor would begin building inside the room, causing
mere minutes of my life to ache into horrific quarter-hour increments.
I don't mean to be
rude - which is exactly why most such job candidates with the issue described
here will never be notified as to why they did not get that all important call
for a second job interview. After all, who is going to be that person to phone
and inform a job candidate that they were eliminated from consideration of hire
due to an overt human smell? What would the legal ramifications be for a
business that made such a phone call?
After all, any one of
us may find that our deodorant fails and as a result body odor manifests -
which is quite understandable. At some point in our lives it happens for many
of us, we get nervous and we sweat, and since job interviews make some of us
very nervous it may cause us to exude additional amounts of perspiration; ergo
- increased body odor.
At other times,
though, in my experience, some job candidates find themselves setting new
records for interview odors, often not even realizing at the time that they
carried with them into the job interview their resume, their job references --
and a noxious scent so strong that it destroyed any chance to get hired.
I offer two real-life
examples to illustrate this issue; examples that may cause you to cringe, yet
examples that I personally witnessed and experienced both with my eyes and my
nose. Please excuse the vividness of the words to follow, they are the only way
I know to express the negative bias this job interview issue usually brings to bear
for both the afflicted job seeker and the innocent employers simply trying to
hire the best person possible to fill their job opening.
Example one -- focuses on an
intelligent, professionally dressed lady in a very stylish and appropriate
dark-blue business suit (it was winter season); which in later retrospect was
lucky for us and for she, given the results witnessed. She was interviewing for
an office management position for a multiple practice facility of medical
specialists. As she entered the room and the door was closed behind her there
was an immediate and strong scent of urine, which mingled and intertwined with
a light, lemony perfume she wore, enough to give the lemon scent a decided
twist! An odor that increased its want of attention as the first minutes of the
interview began. What was causing the odor? We did not know and were too
polite to ask (please refer to the first sentence in this article). So
we quickly completed the job interview, only to notice afterward that she had
left a small wet spot in the chair she occupied; true story.
Example two -- another such
job related meeting lasted only five minutes or so due to a small, but brown
shaded, stain that a job candidate carried with him as he stood to introduce
himself there in the small conference room where the interview was to occur. A
stain that was clearly seen by us when he turned to sit, a brownish colored
mark, having formed inside the creased area of this job candidate's pants; a
place on the pants where his bottom met the seat of the chair - a stain casting
up a strong aroma of well warmed human feces. Very fresh feces, I may add. A
smell that had already permeated the room, as he had been asked to await ten
minutes or so as I completed some notes I was making prior to the job interview
about to take place.
Some readers will
accuse this author of exploiting a few limited outrageous circumstances for
purposes of media attention - and they would be correct in that
accusation. Too many good job seekers miss out on great job offers due
to this interview issue, thereby demanding it be addressed in a public forum,
if the issue is not to be discussed in the job interview itself - which
will likely never occur, due to good manners, politeness, and consideration of
others, as mention in the first sentence of this article.
Probably most job
seeker readers of this article will assume they will never have to deal with
such a noxious problem as those addressed herein. Maybe the defeated job
seekers used in the examples above had health issues that exacerbated their
bodies and caused the offending circumstances; it's probably true. Does that
knowledge repair the issue for them or the employers, or others? No.
And too often it is
not a health issue at fault; I have attended such interviews
where way too much cologne or perfume was applied by the job candidate, enough
to literally chase out of the room job interviewers having allergic reactions
to the chemicals hanging in the air of the room; again, a true story.
Same for job
candidates who arrive carrying a very strong smell of fuel; in more than one
case job candidates had just filled their their vehicles with gas and
inadvertently spilled gasoline heavy upon their shoes and/or hands and the odor
carried into the room, other job candidates sported a healthy farmyard
character, even as job interviewers sometimes noted a series of brownish carpet
stains from something those candidates had stepped into before arriving for the
job interview.
Whether it's a case of
unexpected diarrhea, a step into a putrid pile, an over measure of cheap (or
expensive) cologne or perfume, weak urethral muscles causing a leak, profuse
body odor from sweat - whatever the offending scent, double check yourself for
these related job interview issues prior to attending your next job interview.
And do not assume that you are the one person in the world that such a thing
will never happen to, even as you are pulling into a fuel station for a quick
fill-up on the way to a job interview.
Article Source: