To think that introverts are given a hard time by recruiters/potential employers?

[Rhine]

I've been looking for another job for a while now and I feel like I'm hitting my head against a brick wall. The modern recruitment process seems to be designed to favour extroverted people, placing introverts into situations that they will naturally struggle and feel uncomfortable in.

Gone are the days where you just popped off a CV or application form and if you were lucky then got a one to one interview with the manager, now before you even get to one one one you have these group interviews with bloody "role play" situations and "ice breakers" where you have to stand up and "sell yourself". FFS I'm an introvert, It's just not in my nature to sell myself and I find the role playing stuff stupid and awkward.

If it was a sales job I was going for I'd say fair enough, but you even have to do these silly "recruitment centres" for a job stacking the shelves in Tesco now, and that's only if you get past those awful aptitude tests that they make you do online which are always the kiss of death for introverts! It's like being on the fucking Krypton Factor!

I just wish employers would give introverts a chance and go back to the old methods of a face to face interviews. I know I've lost out on jobs that I KNOW I can do.

It's not fair, is it?

It doesn't sound like a personality issue, more some sort of mental block that could be improved with practice or CBT or similar.

If its not due to introversion, what is it? He doesn't lack confidence, or knowledge, but he just gets drained by being in a room full of strangers. I thought that was the whole thing about being introverted, that group situations are difficult? That's what I understood from reading about it.

Sounds more like something akin to stage fright. Group situations are tiring, but don't render an introvert completely incapable of functioning.

Most people are somewhere on a continium. Extremes at both ends of the spectrum of introvertism/ extravertism makes someone unemployable.

I think its important to feel positive about being an introvert. Being an introvert is not a failing, its a difference. An extravert loves a loud party, where as an introvert would be happier surfing the web on a PC.

I don't find group situations difficult at all. However I enjoy my own space.

He would be similar in a social setting - in a large group he would be extremely quiet, speak only if someone speaks to him etc. He absolutely doesn't do small talk with people he'll not see again, he is totally bemused by the idea of chatting to someone for the sake of it.

But with friends, family and colleagues he is chatty and very warm.

I don't get small talk. Rubbish at it.

Interviews, presentations though, they're not small talk. I get to talk fairly earnestly about things during those. That I can do.

Being crap at small talk and nervous in unfamiliar social situations isn't introversion. It's stuff that can be faked, practised and improved.

Stick me in front of a group of teenagers and I'm fine. Ask me to stand up and speak at staff briefing and I get all nervous. But I know if I did it every week I'd get over it.

I agree and I think it demonstrates a woeful lack of imagination on the part of recruiters. I am not an introvert but I am not comfortable in forced situations as described in the op, I remember an interview years ago for a store assistant position in lidl. I was sitting in a room for 30mins with two other applicants. I read the paper. Apparently I was meant to converse and discover fun facts about the other guys! We had been made to wait deliberately, the smarmy interviewer thought he was the dogs bollocks, I thought he was a twat. What a waste of time for all concerned but I did get the job. Lucky me.

The point is not everyone is a good performer in these interview scenarios but they still will have mad skills useful to an employer. Dh is in communications but his is not a fluffy pr approach - ask him to write an article/ press release / policy document, come up with a strategy then he his entirely in his comfort zone. Ask him to make a key note speech at a conference he will freeze, a good manager will play to the strengths of their team.

I think there's a fair bit of truth in that. The selection process we use for trainees probably counts against introverts, although we've been told by applicants ours is considerably less intimidating than many of our rivals.

Those introverts who get through it will probably have to do more to convince us to keep them on at the end of the 2 years.

I hate group interviews. I just fake it, and pretend I'm outgoing. It's easier if you think of it like acting.

What exactly is introversion, if it's not any of the things that I've understood it to be?

I don't believe that you can learn to make small talk etc. If you could, then people who don't find it comes naturally to them would just learn to do it. But more to the point, why should they have to? Why should they have to change?

Anyone can learn to do small talk, some people won't ever much enjoy doing it, but that's another matter. Just like anyone can learn to do a presentation, you just need a good teacher (or teachers) and lots of practice. If you are an extrovert you may feel energised by working a room whereas if you are an introvert you may feel drained. But that's like an extrovert may find doing an isolated task more draining and an introvert might get really into it. Doesn't mean the extrovert can't learn to work like that.

I am extrovert and I don't do well with artificial assessment type exercises as I can struggle to take a back seat and annoy people. My dh is an introvert and much better at steering from behind. I would hate to be given a dumb exercise on a subject I know nothing about, but I love presenting on things close to my heart. My ds is very introvert but has no problem talking about his passions, My dd is an introvert but can be very shy.

Ideally a good recruitment process will test in a variety of ways relevant to the job. In practice most recruitment processes are pretty flawed. That goes for interviews as well as tests. The only approach I'd be very wary of is one on one interviews as they are the most biased, likely to be more about personality and suseptable to prejudice.

Oops, dd is an extrovert not an introvert.

I'm introverted, shy and have rubbish (verbal) communication skills so I'm screwed in every way. I don't have a problem doing presentations though, as long as I know my subject well and feel confident on it. In fact, I even sometimes enjoy doing them! Whereas I have a friend who's extremely outgoing and confident yet falls to pieces in presentations.

I am hopeless at group tasks. I try and contribute as much as I can but I still always get told that I'm too quiet. I've had some awful interviews but I've also had good ones, and I've even had one where I was told my interview was amazing. I realise that my communication skills are a problem though, to the extent that I've wondered whether I have Aspergers/high functioning autism/whatever it's called now (and not just because of that, but because of certain behaviours I exhibited as a child, amongst other reasons). That is different to being an introvert though.

Honestly, it does worry me. I do think that introverts and/or shy people are immediately at a disadvantage. It's not fair but sadly that's how the world seems to work now.

treacle google 'how to make small talk' - lots of people do think it is a social skill that can be learned and improved. Not liking something and not being able to do something aren't the same thing. Personally, I've found making small talk a lot easier since I had children because I can talk about them. My DH doesn't like football particularly, but always makes sure he knows what's going on because men tend to default to sports.

Why should people learn how to improve their social skills? Because it greases the wheels and makes everyone's lives a bit easier.

This is an interesting, and relevant, read: sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2006/09/the_end_of_the_.html

It's not about people being unable to do a particular job, it's about struggling to prove that they can. My dh's communication skills are just fine, in his job and his everyday life, but he can't do it in an artificial setting. Not won't do it, but can't do it. Have you never been so nervous in an interview that you have opened your mouth to answer a question and no words have come out? It has happened to me, and it was horrific.

I agree, it's not a case of 'won't do', more like 'can't'. I'm the same, you can't shut me up around people I know, but put me in an artificial setting and I clam up, or stutter or worse, nothing comes out.

And do people really think that introverts have learning difficulties?

I hope that isn't the case!

I'm introverted, shy and have rubbish (verbal) communication skills so I'm screwed in every way.

Pandora, me too, we are stuffed,

I don't have a problem doing presentations though,

You are not as badly off as me - I have NEVER done a presentation in my life, so I am Royally stuffed.

That's another thing the recruitment process should take into account, the fact that a lot of people have never done presentations (they hadn't come into being when I was at school - it was all tests and exams - coursework started to play a small part by the time I'd left).

Whereas, the generation of the last 20 years has grown up with presentations -so are more used to them. It's second nature and not alien to them.

YANBU imo.

Its all a load of total bollocks.

Recruitment is an industry that has needed to be created to replace the jobs our country has lost through stopping to actually produce anything.

I despise these recruitment days and XFactor style interviews where you get told "ah sorry you have FAILED YOU LOSER and are going home" or "You have made it through to round 3, where after lunch we will be putting you through an imaginative assertion excercise....."

BOLLOCKS!! ABSOLUTELY BOLLOCKS!!!

I have had it with this shit. I walked out at Round 8 (9 hours into a selection day) for a 16 hours a week job on the minimum wage because - because at round fucking 8 they asked me to stand uop in a room full of people and demonstrate being a GREEN FUCKING TRIANGLE!!!!

Come on then all you recruiters... Please tell me, what should I have done to be green triangle or how about the person before me that was asked to be a red box - were the star jumps they started to do around the room, is what they were looking for????

I have a really sneaking suspicion that some sick git somewhere is just making up this random shit as piss take and to make their jobs as recruiters more fun. I suppose as well, they have to keep coming up with new recruitment strategies to keep themselves in a job.

25 years ago I started work and I had some bloody good jobs with alot of responsibility. It was all based on application/cv interview - sometimes infront of a panel and if at that point they liked you - you started on a strict 1 month,3 month or 6 week induction period. During which as an employee I was expected to settle into my role and prove myself and if the employer did not like what they saw they were well within their rights to dismiss me. I got 3 jobs like this.

If an induction period does not give an employer a truer picture of what someone is like in the workplace than fake role play scenarios, making shit out of paper, pretending to be stranded on a Desert Island and being a fucking green triangle then I dont know what will.

All of these jobs were customer facing roles with some very sensitive and confidential matters involved.

I appreciate it may not be viable in some roles but for most this method would.

I would still like to know what the fuck was expected of me though when I was asked to be a green triangle infront of a panel of 6 recruiters and 11 other remaining candidates. Can someone tell me please?

I have had it with this shit. I walked out at Round 8 (9 hours into a selection day) for a 16 hours a week job on the minimum wage because - because at round fucking 8 they asked me to stand uop in a room full of people and demonstrate being a GREEN FUCKING TRIANGLE!!!!

Omg does this shit seriously happen?

What kind of sickos make up these rubbish 'tasks'?
And all this for a job on the minimum wage?

I would still like to know what the fuck was expected of me though when I was asked to be a green triangle infront of a panel of 6 recruiters and 11 other remaining candidates. Can someone tell me please?

I'm curious now as well.

Are there any recruitment people on here who can kindly explain why applicants are expected to do these stupid things? Pretending to be a green triangle? Seriously?! What the actual fuck is the point in that? What is it supposed to achieve?

It's all just a load of wank.

no such interviews when applying for technical jobs in IT (at least I've never come across one!)

what industry are we talking about?