A Disturbing Trend in Asian HR
By Mike Threatt
As an HR professional in China I know that I am often insulated from the latest methods of western interviewers. I am familiar with the “Angry Interviewer” method when working with CSRs; however, this method is now spreading to Asia with the level and intensity of anger being intentionally raised in the mistaken belief that this will guarantee a more refined screening process.
Playing the role of an angry customer has always been a standard way to gauge a candidate’s suitability to customer service. What is becoming more prevalent is the interviewer intentionally angering a candidate during standard questioning and determining their suitability only from the responses given in this stressful situation. While this may work in most (some?) cases, cross-culture (Asian) interviewing ensures this will fail miserably due to differences in reactions based on business/social culture and the circumstances of the exchange.
As an example; we arranged a phone interview between a young Japanese candidate and a western HR manager. The HR manager began the interview with standard questions and very quickly became annoyed, then angry with the candidate. At the conclusion of the interview the candidate was upset and refused to discuss the details of what happened. There were three ways to respond, each of which will make the interview an exercise in futility.
1. Reciprocate (to a lesser degree) and fail the interview in which case the company may have lost a very self-confident employee who could have brought strength to a department. In all fairness, this response would be an extremely odd response for most of the younger Chinese and Japanese candidates with whom I have worked but common with anyone above a certain age.
2. Speak openly and directly to the interviewer and ask why they are being so rude. At this point the interviewer has two choices, come clean and explain the method or continue the charade. If the interviewer comes clean he has learned absolutely nothing about the candidate other than they are not stupid (and the candidate now knows the company has no qualms about being deceitful); if the interviewer continues he has lost the justification of any decision made based on future responses. (“I want to hire her but the interview was a bust since she knew what was going on.”)
3. Refuse to respond to the anger and answer as the interviewer would expect a successful CSR to respond. – While this is what the interviewer is seeking to evoke, an Asian candidate might go this route but would most likely turn down any job offer no matter how attractive. (Which is what happened in this case.) She may have needed the job but to a young Asian if the first contact is like this imagine an office full of people with the same attitude; a room full of discontented, angry coworkers. Anyone who does accept a job offer after this type of interview is almost certainly going to be a meek office drone who brings nothing to a company beyond a warm body with the ability to parrot responses.
I think this is one of the main reasons foreign companies are disappointed in their hires. Often it’s not the candidate’s lack of skills but the company’s misperception of responses based on their own culture. The very employees they are looking for, courteous people who enjoy working with the public and want a job where they can make a difference, will respond differently to a rude interviewer (perceived as a work superior) and a rude customer (the focus of their work) based solely on the situation they are in at the time.
To people in most cultures of Asia, an interview is a chance to check the possibility of beginning a ‘relationship’ with a company. It is not a test to be passed, tests are written on paper and grades are given. Success in ‘angry’ interviews comes only when the candidate is aware that they are participating in a role-play where the interviewer is direct and open about difficulties that may be encountered.
Primary interviews are meant to be short and direct so interviewers can save time by weeding out the majority of incompatible candidates under the broadest terms such as skill level, language ability, or attitude. Just as we expect candidates to answer questions truthfully, HR professionals cannot make snap decisions based on the results of deceptive cross-culture interviewing. To be a successful recruiter cultural awareness is more necessary than almost any other skill when it comes to rating foreign candidates.
I truly believe that any HR person who cannot get a good sense of a candidate’s basic personality, integrity, character, and suitability for a specific position after 15 minutes of open and honest interaction (in person OR on the phone) should not be allowed to interview. Companies need to have a rule that interviewing across a cultural divide needs to be limited to HR people who have extensive experience in both cultures.
Mike Threatt, Dalian Universal Human Resources
September 11th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Aside from being a totally dumb idea of an interview technique, this does raise an interesting cultural point. Even in a real life situation, young Chinese staff are unlikely to handle an anger / confrontation situation inside the company or with customers in a way that the Western manager would deem successful. Chinese have little experience in dealing with confrontation situations in their own lives, so their reaction if inexperienced in such cases is likely to be defence or denial. Yet another area in which local Chinese staff need loads and loads of training to come up to an ‘average / common sense’ standard of working in comparison with the ‘overpaid’ expat workers.
September 12th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
This technique is just another Western idea cooked up by someone with too much time on their hands to find heartless employees with plastic smiles. I’ve been the customer with some of these “carefully screen” employees and would prefer to find a real person.
Still some will have the need to play with such techniques while others find good, trainable persons.
How about trying the happy customer technique and learning to build loyalty with them?
Ooo, was I angry here?
September 12th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Wow! I have not come across the angry interview technique before. I can hardly imagine that this technique would be successful in the UK or mainland Europe and certainly see your point that it would not work at all in the Far East. In fact, I can’t think of a less appropriate interview technique for the Far East.
I can imagine that this type of interview technique has limited value as a role playing tool in recruiting customer service/ account management or sales staff but only in a carefully controlled environment - i.e. the candidate knows that it is a role playing situation and is tested on how they complete their task/ objective in such a situation. This is a much more honest approach.
Ultimately though, you can not test for all eventualities and only exposure to challenging situations in the work place (supported with coaching and training) will determine how good a candidate is and what their prospects for moving up the corporate ladder are.
September 12th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Mr Threatt
with a name like this arent you the ideal person to conduct the angry interview??
i find that its not necessary to get artifically angry in most candidate interviews here..the anger comes naturally as a consequence of the incompetence of many of the candidates
September 13th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Anger in many forms are powerful feelings.
A customers anger outburst and frustration met with controlled anger from an employee, that match the situation will in many cases work well to calm the situation down to conversation level. Empathy with an angry person and ‘I am sorry’ attitude works wonders, because the person who feels offended now begins to feel understood.
Just a thought.
September 15th, 2008 at 9:23 am
This approach to interviewing would be a disturbing trend full stop - whatever the culture. If I was at the receiving end of an ignorant person being angry with me when applying for a job I would put down the telephone and tell my friends about the organisation and encourage people not to apply.
September 16th, 2008 at 1:13 am
Mr Lodge,
Of what significance is my name?
September 17th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
“Companies need to have a rule that interviewing across a cultural divide needs to be limited to HR people who have extensive experience in both cultures.” - I agree this summary.
Hope you found the hight candidates using your method.
September 18th, 2008 at 5:01 am
George - “Chinese have little experience in dealing with confrontation situations in their own lives”
That’s just a ridiculous statement.
September 19th, 2008 at 2:23 am
I don’t find this technique to be effective and the risk of BRAND damage to the company is high. My view is that company should not act arrogant and assume that people are desperate to join the company (even for famous companies). A preferred approach is to ensure that whoever applied and whether they got the job or not, they get feedback and come away feeling that the interview process has been professional and positive impression of the company. Why? Because this is basic human manners but unfortunately less commonly practiced that it seems. Also the applicant could be the company’s future customer, partner, supplier, etc. By the way, I agree with Heather, Chinese is actually well-versed in confrontational situations - just go to a local market and see for yourself. This actually occurs quite a bit in business situation as well (but you’re less likely to encounter it if you’re a Westerner).
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:27 am
Mike,
thanks for a great article. I believe the problem is not using different interview techniques such as the ‘angry customer scenario’ but the knowledge/experience/cultural sensitivity WHEN and HOW to apply those techniques.
I have gone through this type of interviews myself many times and based on that experience I have noticed that especially companies without any customer service at all tend to use that type of technique…..(to name a big three letter Dutch bank as a good example)
With regards to your point of potential candidates seeing their interview process as part of a relationship building I totally agree and I think it applies not only in Asia. I just hope for all the enthousiastic and hard working global workers that more companies will realise this sooner than later and adapt their interview/HR processes before they will loose out on more talent…
September 26th, 2008 at 5:32 am
Heather, I do find that Chinese will walk away from confrontation and often avoid it at all costs, especially younger ones that have been trained by their parents brought up in the cultural revolution. The fear of angering someone stronger is very strong. Go to the bank, watch the rich and powerful go to the front of the line, have you ever seen anyone make noise and confront the rich powerful in the head of the line? Go to any crosswalk and watch the people behave sheepishly while the Mercedes and the Audi’s drive by against the light and threaten to run over anyone who bothers to get in the way, I’ve never seen anyone complain or confront.
Watch the smoker in the elevator blow smoke in others space and never will you see anyone confront the wrong doer. These things in the west are common areas on confrontation and you will see the meekest grandmother confront the offenders.
So I do agree that Chinese do have much less experience in confrontation that their western counterparts.
October 11th, 2008 at 2:36 am
I think that the reason for acting the ‘angry customer’ is to see the level of self-control and damage-limit the applicant will have in such a confrontational situation.
How the applicant will assess and resolve the situation.
In fact I believe it is so much easier to get angry, than it is to control one’s temper and remain calm, and not let one’s natural aggressive nature take control when faced to another aggressive person.
Apart from controlling one’s own temper, is the way how the applicant handles the situation that is of utmost importance.
But primordial to it all is the competence of the interviewer to judge it all and make the correct assessment, in fact most interviewers would fail such a test if they had to sit through it I believe.
But overall I did like the article written by Mike Threatt, it was quite pertinent.
October 28th, 2008 at 8:18 pm
I really agree with your article. Displaying anger towards a candidate seems like a good way to warn them off from your company. Your statement :
I truly believe that any HR person who cannot get a good sense of a candidate’s basic personality, integrity, character, and suitability for a specific position after 15 minutes of open and honest interaction (in person OR on the phone) should not be allowed to interview.
should be on the walls of HR offices everywhere.