the assertive interviewee

Justine is 32, divorced with an 5-year old son and because the last thing she wants in life is to become stuck in a miserable job she's holding out for the perfect position.

What distinguishes Justine from other women is her incredibly observant powers and assertive presence.

"I became quite a master people reader as a result of being the baby of my family," explains Justine. "I'm sensitive to people's moods and environments generally. If I get a bad vibe from a place I'm outta there as fast as I can."

"I learnt everything I know from asking questions, watching others and generally checking out the lie of the land," says Justine.

"It was the only way I was going to survive in a family of seven. My big brothers and sisters gave me a hard time, but I grew up faster and smarter than they did. I will never allow anyone to boss me around, and I'm applying everything I learnt as a kid to help me find a good job."

"Sure I want to work and get real money," says Justine, "but when you've been pushed around a lot as kid - like I was - you don't want to repeat that history in a relationship or a job."

"I'd rather be a single stay at home mom than get pushed around by a guy or employer," says Justine. "It's as simple as that."

"And yes," concedes Justine, "that's why I stopped at one child. Life was tough for me and I wanted my son to have a good life. And by good life I don't necessarily mean money. I mean self-respect. I mean being your own person. So finding the right job is very important to me. I won't take any old job like some women do."

"Most women are so anxious and self-absorbed when they attend job interviews that they forget that their purpose in being there is not just to be interviewed." explains Justine. "I love job interviews because I act as an interviewer, too. I don't just sit there answering questions like a dummy. I ask questions, and plenty of them!"

Most importantly, though, Justine believes that attending interviews is the only opportunity we get, before it is too late, to get an inner view of the place where we've applied for a job.

Justine believes it's always a good idea to check the place out thoroughly before an interview appointment.

"I always do a trial run of the trip I'll have to make to the interview," explains Justine, "not just to familiarize myself with the route but also to imagine how I would feel doing that trip every day for maybe the rest of my life."

However, Justine explains that nothing is going to be as revealing as actually being in the building, getting an inner view.

"Because of security measures," explains Justine, "we are only likely to get an opportunity to do this at the time of our initial interview appointment."

"I'm always early for interview appointments," says Justine. "Not just to compose myself and visit the bathroom and do a final check of my appearance to see that no tags are hanging out or remains of breakfast are splattered on my shirt. I'm early primarily so that I can get an inner view of the building I'll be working in and the people I'll be working with."

Justine always makes a point to chat with the receptionist - he or she is always happy to chat with interviewees and answer any general questions. In fact, according to Justine, some companies include our contact with the receptionist in their appraisal of our suitability for the job.

"I'm always very careful what questions I ask the receptionist," laughs Justine, "and I don't assume that he or she is automatically going to be on my side."

"Also," adds Justine, "as I'm sitting in the reception area, I take a good look at the people passing by. I know that they will be taking a good look at me, too! Do they look stressed or happy? Do they dress formally or casually? Can I imagine myself working alongside them?"

"The only parts of the building we are likely to have access to at the interview," says Justine, "are the washrooms and the reception area, but a great deal about the company can be gained from these two areas. Is the washroom clean and modern and well lit? Do the cubicles have toilet paper?"

"Don't laugh," explains Justine. "If you have ever worked for a company that fails to provide toilet paper then you know exactly what to look for."

"Check out the reception area," advises Justine. "Is it spacious, bright and welcoming? Are the chairs comfortable?"

Nobody is going to get a good first impression of a company with a cramped, dark reception area with cold, hard seats, or even a reception area that looks like a brothel with mood lighting and plush chairs.

"I always pay attention to reception areas," says Justine, "because if it is inhospitable or strange I can imagine how awful my working area is going to be like. If that's how the company welcomes visitors, then how do you think it will treat staff?"

And, when she is finally called in to be interviewed, Justine believes in taking advantage of this opportunity to get an inner view of the working part of the building and the people she is likely to be working with.

"The interviewers will be doing their best to get an inner view of us by our grooming, dress and the way we walk and talk," explains Justine, "so I check them out, too!"

Justine maintains that the people who interview us are likely to be the company's 'face'. If she doesn't like their faces, then she will have a very clear inner view of what the company itself is like.

"First impressions," concedes Justine, "are not always a good indication of the value of anyone or anything - but that is how job applicants are being judged and if I'm rejected after the first interview then it is very comforting to remember that the washroom didn't have any toilet paper and that working there just wouldn't flush with me at all."

pay secrecy

Jessie is in her first job and while she would never refuse a good job with prospects because it was low paying, she is very upset to learn that she is being paid lower than team members doing similar work and she is especially upset because some of these people lack her educational qualifications.

"Sometimes," says Jessie, "you can be in a job for months if not years before you discover that a team member is earning more than you are and when all things are equal - which they mostly are - you wonder why management allows this unfairness to happen."

How Jessie discovered she was earning less pay than a team member is one of those grey areas that we all wonder about. She didn’t go looking for evidence. She had no idea she was receiving less pay until Fate stepped in her path.

"I accessed the other guy's personal folder on the network to get a document I needed and saw a sub-folder called 'pay slips', explains Jessie. "Okay, it was probably not the right thing to do but it was on a team network, the personal folder was not locked and it contained many documents that needed to be shared."

Jessie felt that something as personal as pay slips shouldn't be on a network shared by all, so she felt that it had fallen into her hands for a reason and sure enough it had!

The other guy was earning $5K more than she was and she was understandably furious because he had no educational qualifications and had started about the same time as she had.

Jessie is aware that when people start jobs there is sometimes a weird clause in their contract stating words to the effect that you are not to discuss your salary with team members.

This is obviously a situation where team members are going to be earning more, or less, than their colleagues doing similar work, and in Jessie’s book of ethics it is a nasty practice.

"I would not have accepted the job had this sort of thing been in my contract," says Jessie.

"I am aware, too, that at interviews some employers will sometimes ask outright: 'What are your salary expectations?' They are perfectly aware of the going rate for your skills, and so are you, and when this happened to me when I was job hunting I refused to play their game."

"I told them that I expect to be paid a salary commensurate with that paid to other members of the team," says Jessie. "In doing so, I made it plain to them that I expect no more or no less than others doing similar work. Also, I am encouraging the employer to be ethical."

To Jessie, companies that enforce 'salary secrecy' clauses in contracts are dividing and conquering the team. Such clauses drive a wedge between team members, negating the whole purpose of putting people in teams.

"I believe in equal pay for equal work, and I do not believe it is ethical for companies to pay workers more, or less, than their colleagues doing equal work depending upon how assertive they are at interviews."

"I believe that people who have spent four year at university gaining qualifications deserve more pay than people who haven't," says Jessie. "But when the work is equal - as in my case - it didn't matter. I was simply angry and humiliated that I was getting less."

At her present workplace, Jessie did not go through that "What are your salary expectations?" question at the interview. The salary for the job was included in the advertisement. It was fixed, and Jessie accepted it as a fair salary.

The guy who was earning more than she was had started on the team a few months earlier, so either he had asked for a higher salary at the interview or it was offered to him.

"No job gets downgraded $5K in three months," says Jessie. "Something very wrong was going on here."

As Jessie points out, workplaces are where you make lifelong friends. You often spend more time with your team than you do your family, and good relations with them are thus imperative.

"If you discover you are earning more than a team member doing equal work," says Jessie, "you may be pleased but you will also feel uneasy wondering whether someone else in the team gets more than you do!"

It is not a good situation to be in. And a far worse situation would be discovering, as Jessie did, that you are earning less than a team member.

Jessie has now been placed in a tricky situation.

If she complains about receiving $5K less than her team member, she will have to admit that she looked at his private file. She does not feel happy about making this admission - but by the same token she feels that she was given the opportunity to look at his personal file for a reason.

That reason, Jessie feels, is to assess whether she wants to stay in her present job knowing that her employer is guilty of treating her unfairly.

Jessie can ask for a $5K raise without mentioning her team member’s salary, or she can look for another job.

"Funny thing," sighs Jessie, "I was perfectly happy with my salary before I discovered I was being paid less than someone else."

female job applicant risks

Debbie is angry that male job applicants can get away with things at interviews that females can't, and that women have additional difficulties when they're interviewed by males.

"Unless the guy is gay - and more interested in your clothes than your gender - the male interviewer is more likely to be checking you out as a bedmate rather than a valued employee," says Debbie, "and the guys old enough to be your father, happily married with four kids, are often the worst."

"That's not to say, of course, that female interviewers don't act in the same lascivious manner towards male job applicants," adds Debbie, "but there is a significant difference. Let's face it, female job applicants are going to feel a lot more intimidated being ogled by a man in a position of power over them than a male job applicant would be in the reverse situation."

"Also, a woman's appearance is far more important than her credentials," sighs Debbie. "If a guy has good credentials he can front up at job interviews with a day old stubble and smart casual clothes and get away with it but women are always expected to be immaculately groomed and wearing the dreaded interview suit, whether or not the job requires formal clothing."

"And while some men can get away with outrageous behavior at interviews - one guy I know jumped on the interview table and danced his way into a tech job," says Debbie, "women are always expected to behave themselves."

Debbie is at the stage of her job search where she is reaping the rewards of laying a solid foundation before she presented herself to the world. She took time off to enjoy herself after leaving college, and then she set about a very systematic job search.

She wrote a great CV, networked like mad and targeted the jobs she really wanted. The interview calls came in thick and fast. In the first week she had four interviews, the second of which was absolutely awful.

The job was advertised as a personal assistant to the manager of a golf distribution company. It was a small company and Debbie liked that. Plenty of opportunities to take on responsibilities, become indispensible and earn big money.

"As I left the elevator and walked up the corridor to where the office was situated," says Debbie, "I noticed a very small man who leered at me lasciviously as I passed by. His eyes went up and down my body like he was measuring me for his bed."

Thinking no more of it, Debbie entered the office and presented herself to the receptionist. She was then ushered into the manager's office and told to wait a while. Passing the time, Debbie picked up some golfing magazines and tried to figure out why it's such a popular game for guys. She then got up and tried a swing with one of the clubs that was lying around the office, and just then the door opened and the manager entered.

"It was the guy in the corridor," laughs Debbie. "The slime-ball took my hand and caressed it rather than shook it, and then motioned for me to sit next to him on the sofa. It was going to be one of those intimate interviews!"

"He was not at all interested in my credentials," says Debbie. "He told me he needed 'mothering' and looked at my chest to see whether I would qualify. I nearly died with embarrassment."

Realizing that she could never work with this man in a million years, Debbie excused herself from the interview and made a hurried exit.

Unlike Debbie, most male job applicants would take it as a sign of success if a female interviewer flirted with them, or looked them up and down, even if the lady was old enough to be their mother or grossly unattractive.

Female job applicants, on the other hand, want to be judged on their merits not on their their looks - unless, of course, the job depended upon physical attractiveness and socializing with the boss was an expected part of the job.

In Debbie's case, the advertised job did not say anything about social activities, event management and that sort of thing so she had no reason to expect that it was going to be anything other than a regular job.

If that were not bad enough, then a female-female interviewer-interviewee situation is fraught with difficulties, too.

"Not necessarily worse than a male-male interviewer-interviewee situation," laughs Debbie, "but it often is because female interviewers are notorious for noticing those little slips in grooming in other women and asking those highly touchy questions that male interviewers overlook. They are are also likely to be less courteous than male interviewers."

"Frankly, even with the prospect of being ogled by old men and accepted or rejected on my attractiveness," says Debbie, "I prefer to be interviewed by males."

"Female interviewers know our secrets," explains Debbie, "men don't!"

job competing with daughter

Ingrid, 45, is a single mom with four children who gets by doing temp work. She would love to have a proper job and depairs that her age forces her to compete for jobs with her daughter and girls young enough to be her daughter.

"I really despair of ever reaching the interview stage with any of my job applications," sighs Ingrid. "Sometimes I wonder why I bother, but while there's life there's hope I suppose."

Ingrid has a professionally presented resume and writes fantastic covering letters, but she just cannot score an interview for the type of job she wants.

"My eldest daughter actually applied for one of the dream jobs I applied for, and got it," laughs Ingrid. "That was sufficient evidence for me to accept that it's not my education, experience, location or just too many applicants applying for the same job - it was my age that had disqualified me."

Up until then, Ingrid had considered all the other factors and reasonably expected at least 10 resume rejections before scoring her first interview.

"After 120 resume rejections," says Ingrid, "I've reached that stage where I accept I'm on the wrong track altogether."

Ingrid is now assessing herself and the type of job she's been applying for.

"The right job for me may not be the job I want," explains Ingrid. "Like most things in life, jobs are a two-way street and if the job I want doesn't want me, then I need to move on, change tack."

Ingrid accepts that the type of job she wants has a preferred age range of 21-35. It is never stated in the advertisement, though. For women under 21 it is simply a matter of time before they qualify for these jobs, but for women over 35, like Ingrid, rejection on account of age may not be discrimination, per se, but simply a fact of the job being better suited for a younger person.

A company may want someone without too much experience so that person can adapt easily to the particular management style of the organization.

The job Ingrid's daughter got hired for involves working alongside people under 21. Ingrid would have been out of place in that job. She would not have fitted in.

"Having once worked at a place where I was older than everyone around me, including my boss," laughs Ingrid, "I do appreciate that this is not a good situation for all concerned."

"I came along ten years after my sisters and brothers," explains Ingrid, "so I know what it is like to feel out of place. I was one of those 'accidental' babies and I grew up knowing that I was not planned like my sisters and brothers were."

"My childhood experiences have left me feeling very sensitive about 'belonging' and 'not belonging' and it's just as bad being the oldest person in a job as the youngest person in a family."

Demographers say that the Baby Boom generation (born 1946 to 1955) is the largest age group in the workforce, but from what Ingrid can see it is the children of the Baby Boomers that are not only most predominant, but also most favored in the workplace.

"And that," concedes Ingrid, "is perfectly normal and natural and right and proper."

There is no way Ingrid can overcome her age, and she says there is no reason why she should.

"I wear my age with pride," laughs Ingrid. "But I accept that I do need to come to terms with the fact that the type of job I've been applying for and rejected for is not right for me."

What other alternatives are there?

"Many people change career direction in mid-life," says Ingrid, "and I may decide to enter a new career field - a field in which age is no barrier; or I may start considering self-employment. What? I don't know. But I'm told that there are many opportunities out there."

She is aware that some jobs actually favor mature women. A recent advertisement for a prison guard gained her attention. Her children were horrified that their mother would consider such a job, but if that is the only thing available for mature women then Ingrid is willing to consider it.

"At least I would be working with mature women like myself and I wouldn't feel out of place," explains Ingrid. "But I guess I would feel out of place in a prison!"

What Ingrid will not consider is a new career field that requires qualifications additional to the ones she already has.

"Bearing in mind the intense competition for jobs," says Ingrid, "I have no intention of re-training or joining the thousands of hopefuls trying to gain the highest educational qualifications possible."

"I don't believe that qualifications necessarily guarantee anybody a job," says Ingrid. "My daughter got the job I wanted and she's just left school!"

Ingrid could never be rejected on account of her experience. She has tons of it and in a wide variety of industries, too.

"I was very surprised when my daughter gained the job I wanted," says Ingrid, "because employers generally prefer someone with at least two years of experience in the field, or a related field. Josie had no experience whatsoever so it must have been her youth and looks that got her the job. I'm happy for her, but it's a slap in the face for me nevertheless."

"It just goes to show," says Ingrid, "that no matter what employers state in ads or tell you what they want - they choose candidates primarily on age, and to hell with the rest."

As far as location is concerned, Ingrid lives in a big city and has no transport problems. She is prepared to look further away for a job, but doesn't see why she should have to.

"I live where the jobs are," says Ingrid, "but nobody wants to employ me."

"In the old days when parents were too old to work the children kept them," laughs Ingrid. "I don't see my daughter showing any signs of wanting to keep me now that she's got the job I applied for - even though I would have been keeping her had I won it!"

"It's strange how society changes values in one respect but not in another, isn't it?"