interviews
Have proper perspective
A wise man in Ireland pushed a tea cup in front of me one day, handle pointing directly to me. He asked, “from where you are sitting, does that tea cup have a handle?” I replied, “of course.” He then said, “from where I’m sitting, there’s no handle on that cup. It’s all about perspective.”
When I say ‘perspective’, what I’m referring to is how I might view a situation versus how you may view a situation. One way to see various perspectives, is to go to your favourite social media platform, click on a news headline, and read all the comments. The comments often reflect perspectives that close themselves off from understanding how other people may see the same situation.
By putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes and changing your perspective you can imagine why they felt a certain way, or why they did something they wouldn’t normally do and that may help you better understand their thought process and reasoning. This approach is especially beneficial for interviewers.
First, having perspective helps you understand what somebody thinks of you when you walk into the interview room. Secondly, taking yourself out of your own perspective helps you think, “If I were this person, what would I need to encourage me to tell the truth today?” Lastly, having perspective helps remove bias. It helps you realize that there are multiple versions of every story. There are multiple perspectives of each story based on the context in which we see it; is there a handle on that cup?
by Chris Norris, CFI
Wicklander-Zulawski Europe
