Dear lovely people,
Recently, I was called-in as a recruitment
consultant to screen candidates on a lengthy list to be interviewed for a
prestigious position. I decided to use a single question. I asked
the candidates how they manage stress. I got a mixture of responses, some got
me laughing uncontrollably and others got me to the summit of rage. One response
from a candidate – Angela caught my attention and got me thinking.
Angela told me when she’s stressed up, she
listens to music, reads her Bible and promenades in the garden. How great it
sounds to listen to music, read your Bible and promenade in the garden but
then, I wonder which single employer will employ somebody to come do that, not
even the church.
Unknown to all the candidates, this is just
one common interview question asked in almost all job interviews. I least expected
to hear the candidates tell me they never get stressed as many did. I do know that
everyone feels stress at one time or another at work. Instead, I expected them
to link the question to the job for which they were applying. I wanted to know if
they knew how pressure affects them at work, and how they manage it. I wanted
to get specific examples of how each of them has handled stress well in the
past and how pressure actually made each of them a more productive employee in
the past.
It’s not like I
don’t understand that the starting point for dealing with stress is Jesus
Christ. For sure, Jesus offers us great encouragement in John 14:1: "Let
not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.” I agree that we desperately need Him in our
lives. We need Him because He is the only one who can give us the strength to
cope with the troubles in our lives. But then, believing in Him does not in any
way mean that we will have a trouble-free life or that we will not succumb to
stress in our lives. It simply means that a life without Jesus Christ makes coping
with stress an impossible and often debilitating task.
Angela failed to realize
that in addition to seeking a solution in music, the garden or the Bible, there
is some primordial work she had to do with her physical self. I expected her to
paint a clear picture of how well she works in stressful situations and so she
needed to give me an example of how she handled stress in a previous job and
not just about being a good Christian.
Many were candidates who erroneously focused on
moments when they did put themselves in a needlessly stressful situation. One
shared a story about a time when he was stressed because he procrastinated and
had to finish a project quickly. I rather expected him to have focused on a
time when he was given a difficult task or multiple assignments, and he rose to
expectation.
I expected them not to focus much on how
stressed out they felt. While it’s good to certainly admit that stress happens,
I expected them to rather emphasize how each of them dealt with stress, rather
than how it bothered them. Many of them went as far as telling me they get
stressed when they’re given multiple projects, knowing fully well that the job
will require them to juggle many assignments at once and so I considered them
unfit for the position.
Only three out of the lot could convince me. These
are those who mentioned that a little stress is a helpful motivator for them
and did provide examples of a time the stress of a difficult project helped them
to be more creative and productive workers. One of them told me she actually works
better under pressure and that she has found that she enjoy working in a
challenging environment. As a project manager, she said she thrives under quick
deadlines and multiple projects. She finds that when she’s under the pressure
of a deadline, she can do some of her most creative works.
I don’t need to tell you that she was top on
my screened list.
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