SWF Seeking Job Candidates?

About 4:00 p.m. yesterday, the skies over my Maryland office turned to black coffee and I watched a thirty-something dodge the pelting rain in a crisp, navy suit -- ten minutes early for her mock interview.

Mock interviews aren't a popular service here. In fact, most of our students and alumni think their interviewing skills are just fine. [Insert knowing sarcastic laugh from our office here]. So when someone steps up to the plate admitting the need for improvement Im happy to oblige.

On this day, Joanne [as Ill call her] smiles timidly as I set up the video camera and begin to attack her with my barrage of questions. I'm not an interview animal, but I refuse to let her off easily.

After twenty-minutes of rapid fire questioning, I play back her video and we dissect it question by question. I share the good and bad (good eye contact, need for more specificity in her answers) and turn to Joanne for her reaction. I'm wondering if she notices her lack of confidence, an apathetic appreciation for the process.

She does, and looks as depressed as the rainy day out my window. She hates what she sees and her frustration turns into a hatred of the interview process. She's normally aggressive and animated, a loud talker. She tones all this down for the interview as colleagues and friends have instructed. Joanne slumps back in her chair telling me that she feels like shes failed and that this thing we call an interview is really just a show.

Sure, I can tell her to be herself, but I know the reality of business and what we are forced to remind job seekers: this is a formal, business process and you have to treat it as such.

As I drive back into the city [cutting several slow and annoyingly oblivious drivers off in the process] I can't help but wonder: is this what we've come to? Interviews taking on the nauseating guise of a first date? You know, where you can't monopolize the conversation, can't talk about politics or sex and certainly can't complain about your crappy day at work. If my co-workers had known the real me, the aggressive, impatient driver, the fenzied wanna-be author, would I still have been hired? [note to co-workers, this is a rhetorical question.]

Fast Company's conversation with headhunter Mark Jaffe sparks that reality that we all wish to be true but our politically correct society won't let it be. What if all interviewers were like Mark, rewarding candidates for igniting flames in a conversation instead of putting them out by making excuses and addressing gaps in their resumes and experiences?

Alison Overholt's profile of social networking sites shows a glimpse into the possibility of finding real candidates. Her profile dips a toe into the waters of digital networking's sassy parallel to dating. What if we scrapped interviewing all together and found candidates in a Match.com-esque way, wading through online profiles and searching only for candidates with a sarcastic sense of humor, no tattoos and long meetings and weak coffee as major turnoffs?

This SWF seeking interesting responses to interviewing a la dating. Blogger likes witty replies, funny observances and complex skeptics. Lawyers telling me why this won't work need not reply.