WorkWise BlogTip: Lightness

Steve Silberberg (fitpacking.com), armed with a degree from MIT, applied for a job at DuPont. In a moment of lightness, he wrote in the "honors and awards" section of the application "Fourth-Grade Locker Monitor" and "Finalist, Bahama Mama Hairy Legs Contest." The interviewer arranged for Silberberg to fly to Delaware, but at the last minute, HR expressed doubt in reaction to his levity. "I allayed concerns by saying that I thought the standard application was a formality and I was just having fun," he recalls.

HR relented, with one caution. "If anything you wrote on the application is found to be a lie," the applicant was told, "you can be dismissed at any time." Not missing a beat, Silberberg countered, "I was too a Fourth-Grade Locker Monitor!"

Did he get hired? No way. "The HR person promptly cancelled my site visitation," Silberberg reports.

The interviewer didn't mind the light touch, might even have welcomed it, but it didn't fly with HR. Was HR taking its function a little too seriously, especially given the fact that the interviewer had cleared the applicant?

Perhaps not. The applicant missed a clue that it was time to stop. He hadn't learned that a communication style that works with some people completely bombs with others.

Dr. Mildred L. Culp welcomes your questions at culp@workwise.net. Copyright 2009 Passage Media.