Page 75 - John Kador - 201 Best Questions to Ask on Your Interview-McGraw-Hill (2002)

THE RULES OF THE GAME

Second, some job coaches trot out the argument that taking notes
makes interviewers defensive, as if you are collecting evidence for a
potential lawsuit. The last thing a job candidate wants to do is make
the interviewer nervous.
Third, these critics suggest that if a candidate whips out a set of notes
during an interview, the recruiter might conclude that the candidate has
a problem with short-term memory or with thinking on his or her feet.

“I coach my candidates not to take notes during the interview because
if you are taking notes you can’t listen with complete attention,” says
Robin Upton, a career coach with Bernard Haldane Associates in Dal-
las, Texas. One downside, she adds, is that note taking exacerbates the
natural human condition of self-deception. “We often hear a question
the way we want to hear it instead of the way the interviewer actually
asked it,” Upton says. Candidates risk appearing evasive if they don’t re-
spond to the question that’s on the table.
When he is considering applicants for senior management positions, Tom
Thrower, general manager of Management Recruiters, a recruiting firm in
Oakland, California, prefers candidates who display total professional self-
assurance. To Thrower, note taking detracts from an expression of over-
whelming organizational confidence. “I’m interested in people with good
memories,” he says. “I find it distracting watching applicants take notes.”
The situation, Thrower concedes, is different for people applying for
technical positions, such as systems analysts, or financial types such as
controllers or budget officers. He expects people applying for these po-
sitions to be very detail-oriented—thus it is appropriate and encourag-
ing to see technicians taking notes during the job interview.

THE ARGUMENTS FOR TAKING NOTES

Most job coaches and recruiters favor note taking. They believe the very
real upsides outweigh the potential downsides. The fact is, most inter-
viewers take notes themselves.
“I’m hugely okay with note takers as long as it doesn’t delay our
process,” says Seattlejobs.org’s president Janice Brookshier. “After all,
I’m going to be taking notes.” A job interview is not a social occasion. It

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