Lesson From the Little Children
I love observing kids, I love talking to them. To me, they are the ones that talk least nonsense.
Sometime back , when I went for fresher interviews to college campuses one thing I would often wonder about is how to judge the attitude of a person sitting across the desk, who often try to feign polished attitudes.
A couple of weeks back during the annual harvest festival INGAT at the St. George's Cathedral at Chennai the perfomance of some little children helped me get some insights into how the attitude of the interviewee could be judged. I was incharge of the youth group's stalls and when I realized that some little kids were dancing I went to see them. That was when I noticed something pertaining to their attitude.
A few kids were really happy about what they were doing, they did not have all the necessary co-ordination but still the element of 'happiness' was high. They needed no external reason for doing what they were doing, the happiness they felt in dancing was sufficient reason enough. On the other hand a few other kids were just performing for the sake of performing perhaps their parents wanted them to dance or their sunday class teacher forced them to enroll. Internally, by themselves, they had no reason as to why they had to do what they were doing. What they did simply brought them no happiness.
Even in work I often find people who are not really happy about the work they do. When there is a problem with the written program and work needs to be done to 'fix' it their face becomes as oblong as it could. They work not for the joy of work but for the sake of something else.
Applying this to conducting interviews, the interviewer need to ascertain the extent of 'happiness' the person has in just 'doing' the work he says he has been doing, withtou regard to any external factors. The interviewer has to ascertain if the interviewee worked in his college for the joy of work or if he worked to get a job or to get better grades. The best attitude to have is the attitude where work is a joy in itself.
Sometime back , when I went for fresher interviews to college campuses one thing I would often wonder about is how to judge the attitude of a person sitting across the desk, who often try to feign polished attitudes.
A couple of weeks back during the annual harvest festival INGAT at the St. George's Cathedral at Chennai the perfomance of some little children helped me get some insights into how the attitude of the interviewee could be judged. I was incharge of the youth group's stalls and when I realized that some little kids were dancing I went to see them. That was when I noticed something pertaining to their attitude.
A few kids were really happy about what they were doing, they did not have all the necessary co-ordination but still the element of 'happiness' was high. They needed no external reason for doing what they were doing, the happiness they felt in dancing was sufficient reason enough. On the other hand a few other kids were just performing for the sake of performing perhaps their parents wanted them to dance or their sunday class teacher forced them to enroll. Internally, by themselves, they had no reason as to why they had to do what they were doing. What they did simply brought them no happiness.
Even in work I often find people who are not really happy about the work they do. When there is a problem with the written program and work needs to be done to 'fix' it their face becomes as oblong as it could. They work not for the joy of work but for the sake of something else.
Applying this to conducting interviews, the interviewer need to ascertain the extent of 'happiness' the person has in just 'doing' the work he says he has been doing, withtou regard to any external factors. The interviewer has to ascertain if the interviewee worked in his college for the joy of work or if he worked to get a job or to get better grades. The best attitude to have is the attitude where work is a joy in itself.