Job Interview - "What are your hobbies?"

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

When first coming out of university, a headhunter contacted me about a job available in another department for the company I currently work for. I showed up, did the interview, was over qualified to the point where the department's GM said "let me tell you this, I think you're perfect for the job. You have experience with field management, you're references all said you were great to work with, you self-taught yourself the software we use..." etc, etc. ..."I'd like to hire you on the spot but, to keep MY bosses happy, I have to go through the next few candidates. Still, I'm going to go ahead and set up a second meeting with our CEO for tomorrow."

So, I'm thinking "great, just out of school and I've already got a second interview with a CEO from one of Canada's largest market research firms!" I go to the meeting, do the deed, all the while the person who did my first interview is telling the CEO how great she thinks I am. And then it happens. The CEO looks at the resume in front of him and says "What's this? You have listed here that you have done freelance writing in the role-playing industry. You also have role-playing listed amongst your hobbies. What is 'role-playing'?" I explain to him, we finish the interview. I go home.

I get a call the next day saying I don't get the job but that another department with the same company is looking for someone to run their call centre and that they'd like me to go in for an interview that very day. So, three interviews in three days with the same company but all with different people. I go in, find out that the job doesn't require my software experience, doesn't involve a call centre like I've previously had experience running, etc, etc. In other words, I'm not as qualified for this job but I sense some desperation on the part of the person doing the interview. At the end of the interview she tells me I'm hired and start the next day.

Skip down a few months and I run into the GM from the other department who did my very first interview with the company. She tells me she's happy I'm doing well and that she was sorry about me not getting the job and that she'd made quite a fuss over me not getting hired as I was by far the favored candidate -- it seems the guy who got the job wasn't even half as qualified as I. She then tells me how the CEO boiled down his reason for not hiring me. And I quote: "I don't think we want some guy playing make-believe at his age and who writes comic books filling this position."

Comic books? WTF? So, yes, I've actually missed out on a job because I listed rpgs amongst my job experience and hobbies, even if the guy who passed me over didn't have the brain power to figure out what an rpg was after I'd explained it to him. As a side note, this CEO and I have since butted heads on a number of occassions, especially after he called my entire staff a bunch of "zit faced losers", because most call centres are staffed by teenagers looking for flexible hours.

 

[Darkness]

It shows that I can spend countless hours in front of a computer screen going over meaningless peices of text and digesting their contents.

Touché.

 

[JPL]

Hmm...seems to me that most folks are going to jump to conclusions about you if you say you do RPGs. Bad conclusions. About your social skills and baseline level of weirdness.

Of course, even if you get the rare interviewer who digs gaming...what if you like the wrong game? Plenty of Vampire players wouldn't touch a d20 guy with a ten-foot pole...

 

[Tsyr]

When I get asked a question for a job interview, I basicly have three things I consider before I answer:

1) Do they have any real buisness asking the question? For example, hobbies, religion, etc. That stuff is not important (normaly, a few exceptions) to the job you are applying for. IMHO, they shouldn't even ask the question, but they do. If I'm not misrespresenting my ability to do the job, I don't really care if I tell the truth to them or not. That leads into my next two things.

2) How would telling them the truth effect my chances of getting the job? If I'm interviewing for a job in a heavily christian area, and I tell them I'm a pagan (regardless of if I am or not, it's a hypothetical question), that very well COULD hurt my chances of getting the job. Legaly? No. But it will. And Dungeons and Dragons is, in a way, worse. There is no law against descriminating against DnD players, so it's all nice and legal. So if I think the truth would hurt my chances, and I am in no way misrepresenting my ability to do the job I'm applying for , I will lie.

3) How badly do I want the job?

Basicly, my answer to "misc" questions is governed by a combination of factors 1-3.

I'll never make stuff up. I will, however, omit things that I don't think they want to hear.

 

[d20Dwarf]

Re: Re: Job Interview - "What are your hobbies?"

I've had, for years, in my resume that I read, collect comic books, play RPGs and do genealogy. No one has ever batted an eye.

Applying for netbook management positions doesn't count, Paul.

 

[Fast Learner]

A job interview has one primary purpose (for you, the job seeker): to get you a job offer.

That's only half the purpose for me. The other half is to find out what the company and position are really like. I've never been asked what my hobbies were, but if I were I would immediately ask why that's germane to the position.

I've interviewed people and hired for many years: the people who also really want to know what they're getting into are the ones I move to the top of the potential hire stack because I know they're not just selling themselves.

Maybe it's just a personal thing, but I have had many colleagues who felt the same.

 

[baradtgnome]

Think of the interview (and later the job) just another chance to role play.

Also, I wouldn't tell them about the biting the heads of live chickens thing either. But hey, If you are all wound up tight about being honest...

Didn't know there were so many Paladins out there.

 

[Fast Learner]

Didn't know there were so many Paladins out there.

Rogues rarely do... something about justification.

 

[baradtgnome]

Rogues rarely do... something about justification.

I think I got a 1 on my hide roll.

 

[Michael Tree]

the people who also really want to know what they're getting into are the ones I move to the top of the potential hire stack because I know they're not just selling themselves.

Indeed. An interview's purpose isn't just to sell yourself, it's to find out more about the job and the people you'll be working with, to help you decide if you want the job.

I would never list roleplaying on a resume, nor would I mention it in an interview. Online I never use my real name for gaming posts, as some time years down the line a prospective employer may do a web search on my name, and the last thing I want them to find is a post arguing some esoteric point of a weird game.

This is not paranoia, as Steve rightly showed with his unfortunate example. Anything that singles you out as "odd", including hobbies that other people don't understand and may easily misconstrue, can very easily lose you a job. When an employer is looking at two dozen people for a job, most of whom are qualified for it, any little sign of weirdness, no matter how small, could get you disqualified.

Obviously the degree to which this is true depends a lot on the type of job you're applying for. If it's a techie job, it probably wouldn't be so bad, but if it's anything corporate or government, or anything with a lot of responsibility, having a hobby that others may interpret as "immature" or "weird" is bad.

Sadly, a lot of psychological research has shown that interviews are horrible predictors of how well a person will perform and get along at a job, but employers still put a lot of weight on them.