Don't answer that

Political interviewers of the Russert school often ask questions without listening to or caring about the answers given. The substance of either the question or the answer isn't the point. The ritual, whether called an "interview" or a "debate" (their term for simultaneous interviews during which the interviewees remain standing) is really an attempt to measure politicians' ability to "stay on message."

What that message is is beside the point. The substance of the message, or its lack of substance, doesn't matter. The politician might be explaining a practical solution to provide health care to the working poor, or they might be shrieking about "Islamofascism." The interviewer doesn't care and doesn't think we should care. All that matters is whether or not the politician in question has demonstrated the required mastery of the art of staying on message.

Normal people tend to find this ritual either dull or laughable. Or both. But the Russerts of this world are deeply impressed, awestruck even, when George W. Bush proves able to answer every question on every topic with the word "terra," or when Rudy Giuliani is able to answer every question with "9/11."

This sort of ritual fosters an evasiveness and pretense that requires something less than candor or honesty on the part of both the asker and the (non)answerer. Even if you've never been a guest on Meet the Press, you've had a similarly distasteful experience -- a taste of the same awkwardly stylized disingenuousness -- if you've ever interviewed for a job. "What are your weaknesses?" the interviewer asks, reading from the standardized list of questions in the prepared script. Your task, at that point, is to recite a response from the standardized list of answers ("I'm a perfectionist," "I care too much," "My awesomeness, like the sun, can be blinding"). Do not answer candidly, or honestly, or relevantly, or in any way related to the generally accepted meaning of the English words "what," "are," "your" or "weaknesses." Straying from the script will mean you don't get the job.

The ritualized pretense of the job interview and the ritualized pretense of the political interview came together in a recent Democratic "debate" in which the moderator, Tim Russert of course, actually asked the candidates "What's your biggest weakness?"

The question seemed to confuse Barack Obama. The Illinois senator responded to Russert's question with the ultimate Beltway faux pax -- a response to the question. He said he was disorganized and always losing papers amid the cluttered piles on his desk.

That was hardly an excessively confessional moment -- Obama was surely withholding his biggest weaknesses -- but it was close enough to an actual response that the rhythm of the ritual was thrown off. Obama had failed to do what the ritual required of him, which is to stay on message. His job was to wait until Russert's lips stopped moving, then repeat his talking points -- change, hope, out of Iraq, whatever. Those talking points, of course, do not include anything about whether or not his desk is organized.

John Edwards went next. When Russert's lips stopped moving, Edwards said, "I sometimes have a very powerful emotional response to pain that I see around me," and springboarded into his talking points. He walked the thin line between artifice and artificiality, and artfully recited an answer from the standardized list.

Obama has since joked about that debate: "If I had gone last, I would have known what the game was. I could have said, 'Well, you know, I like to help old ladies across the street. Sometimes they don’t want to be helped. It’s terrible.'"

He's since mocked his own ineptitude and Edwards' polish, joking that his former opponent told Russert that his biggest weakness was, "I am just so passionate about helping poor people."

Both variations of that joke gently chide Edwards and himself for playing along with and clumsily not playing along with, respectively, the absurd rituals of Russert-World. The barb in such comments, however, doesn't cut into either of the candidates, but into the ritual itself and the pompous, insincerity of the moderator -- of Russert and Russertism in all its incarnations.

Sen. Obama earns major points with me for acknowledging, and thus deflating, that distracting and corrosive absurdity. Bonus points for self-deprecation, and half an extra bonus point for the elliptical praise of his former rival (only half a point because he's probably sucking up for an endorsement from the man I hope to see as our next Attorney General).

But wait, couldn't there be another opposite-from-the-apparent way to interpret those comments? Couldn't Obama's jokes be taken as mockery directed at John Edwards and, what's more, at "poor people" themselves?

Well, we could try to interpret them that way. ... Hmmm. ... No, maybe if we squint and tilt our heads? ... No. Uh-uh. I can't manage that.

For that level of determinedly obtuse humorlessness, we'd have to turn to Roger Simon of The Politico.

Simon -- who hopes one day to grow up to be Tim Russert himself -- announces that "Barack Obama mocked John Edwards in a speech." This, he says, was "so bizarre" that he could scarcely believe it, but he did, after all get the tip, and the spin, straight from Mark Halperin -- former editor of "The Note," i.e., the L'Osservatore Romano of the Church of Russert. So it must be true.

After all, Obama couldn't possibly be making fun of people like Russert and Halperin and The Politico. Everyone knows they are all deeply serious and weighty and beyond mockery. So he must, therefore, have been mocking Edwards. And poor people. And puppies. Poor puppies. Yeah, that must be it.

Trying to explain humor to Roger Simon would be like trying to explain peacock blue to someone blind from birth.

Comments

[amanda w]

Obama's response to the so-called slip-up was rather endearing. Everyone has had a moment like that, so it's fairly easy to sympathize with him, especially when the circumstances are so pointlessly stacked against you like that -- to no real end.

Really, I don't see any point in the moderator asking that particular question at all, except to give us something like Obama's response to his response -- if everyone had stayed on message, well, how boring and breezily blown-past that question would have been. I suppose, though, that they're not aiming to instruct and inform the populace, but to be able to scream GOTCHA! A point that's been well pounded in by the blogosphere already...

[amanda w]

I see everyone is still asleep (or sleepily awake) on this fine morning. Not even Jesurgislac? I finally get to a point where I can comment again, and no one is around. Bah.

[Matt McIrvin]

"What are your weaknesses?" the interviewer asks, reading from the standardized list of questions in the prepared script. Your task, at that point, is to recite a response from the standardized list of answers ("I'm a perfectionist," "I care too much," "My awesomeness, like the sun, can be blinding"). Do not answer candidly, or honestly, or relevantly, or in any way related to the generally accepted meaning of the English words "what," "are," "your" or "weaknesses." Straying from the script will mean you don't get the job.

Except that there are also interviewers who will ask the question specifically to reject people who follow the script, on the grounds that they're bullshitters. I think interviewers ought to avoid the question entirely, since it's basically a cheap trap.

[cjmr's husband]

You have to remember that for Jes it's something like 3:30pm... No, that doesn't make sense...

[mmack]

Even if you've never been a guest on Meet the Press, you've had a similarly distasteful experience -- a taste of the same awkwardly stylized disingenuousness -- if you've ever interviewed for a job. "What are your weaknesses?" the interviewer asks, reading from the standardized list of questions in the prepared script.

"My biggest weakness? I can't give good answers to bullshit questions."

[aunursa]

If there's one thing I change in the presidential debates, it would be to have a moderator who would force the candidates to answer the questions posed, point out when they failed to do so, and cut them off when they go off on another issue.

Too often our politicians -- when faced with a question they don't like -- simply ignore it, or brush it aside and answer a question that wasn't posed.

[aunursa]

Of couse I would also prefer intelligent questions, rather than such drivel as "name your biggest weakness" or "name three mistakes you've made" ... especially when such unfair questions are posed only to one candidate and not the other(s).

[LN]

I was an Edwards supporter, now an Obama supporter and for some reason this:

"from the man I hope to see as our next Attorney General"

had never occurred to me. And now I'm 100% for it! Edwards for AG!

[amanda w]

Edwards anywhere, anywhere, would be wonderful. I simply want to see him in a place where he can effect change. Whether that's as VP, AG, taking on a Gore-esque post-politicking role... he needs to be somewhere, dammit.

[Caravelle]

Your task, at that point, is to recite a response from the standardized list of answers ("I'm a perfectionist," "I care too much," "My awesomeness, like the sun, can be blinding"). Do not answer candidly, or honestly, or relevantly, or in any way related to the generally accepted meaning of the English words "what," "are," "your" or "weaknesses." Straying from the script will mean you don't get the job.

You're behind the curve Fred. Nowadays you aren't allowed "I'm a perfectionist" or "I care too much" anymore; you have to give something else (though presumably still something not too damning). The script now goes : say your greatest weakness, then say how you've succeeded in getting rid of it. And link that to your message, of course.

I saw a great case of this during a course about job interviews. The poor woman was deep in Orwellian doublethink. Whenever she answered a question it went like this :
woman : "When the interviewer asks if you're going to other interviews you should answer the truth, obviously. But always make them understand that you want their job."
student : "I've got a question. Say I've got job interviews with two competing car companies, what do I tell them ?"
woman : "Well, you must tell the truth. But tell them you prefer to work with their company, not their competitor."
student : "But what if I prefer working with their competitor ?"
woman : "Well, you're not going to tell them that, obviously."
student : "But shouldn't I tell the truth ?"
woman : "Of course, you should always tell the truth."
*goes on like this for as long as the student's cruelty allows*

I won't get into how she said to deal with "do you want children"... (though it's simple, really. Tell the truth and answer "no")

[Jen R]

Caravelle: I won't get into how she said to deal with "do you want children"

My response to that would be to blink a couple of times and say, "Wow, is it even legal to ask that?" It wouldn't get me the job, but then I wouldn't want to work there if they're asking that question anyway.

aunursa: Of couse I would also prefer intelligent questions, rather than such drivel as "name your biggest weakness" or "name three mistakes you've made"

I have a bit of a soft spot for the latter, because I don't want another president who's incapable of admitting that they can make mistakes.

[Caravelle]

My response to that would be to blink a couple of times and say, "Wow, is it even legal to ask that?" It wouldn't get me the job, but then I wouldn't want to work there if they're asking that question anyway.

Well, I've heard they're a bit more subtle than that ("Do you like children ?"), but I wouldn't know, I wasn't asked. The problem with the "I wouldn't want to work there anyway" is that it's fine so long as you're not too desperate...

[Izzy]

I think interviewers ought to avoid the question entirely, since it's basically a cheap trap.

I'm with you.

Luckily, nobody I ever interviewed for asked me this--except for Vile Ex-Boss. Which should have been a goddamn sign, really.

[Stan Taylor]

I count myself extremely fortunate to work in an industry, software dev, where people have fairly sensitive BS sensors and a lot of disdain for BS and insincerity. Of course, even in that environment, my biggest weakness tends to be telling the truth too bluntly (and that's my interview answer). I used to think it was a choice between truth, lies and shutting up. With age, I've come to realize that it's often a matter of HOW and WHEN to tell the truth, and WHOM to tell it to. Though I still don't always act with such tact.

[Jen R]

Caravelle: true, and I wouldn't recommend that approach to everyone. But those of us who are in a position to call employers on their discriminatory practices should do so.

[Jon]

A person interviewing me for a job once asked me my astrological sign. I was glad that this interview was being done over the phone so that she couldn't see the face I made. It hadn't been an attempt at levity; she was aksing it as a serious question. I heard later (I got the job - apparently being an Aries worked in my favor) from one of the other two people conducting the interview that they'd had to mute the phone when she asked me that so that I couldn't hear them laughing and saying, "I can't believe you asked him that."
In my interview for my current position I would have rather been asked inane questions, as the interviewer turned the process around by continually saying, "What questions do you have for me?"
As for the "debate" scenario, one wonders why questions are asked at all if the whole point is simply give the candidate an opportunity to stay on message. Why not just give them the pulpit and let them say their piece?
I suppose that wouldn't allow us/the moderator to gauge how well they can relate everything back to their central theme, though.

[hapax]

Except that there are also interviewers who will ask the question specifically to reject people who follow the script, on the grounds that they're bullshitters.

Well, we do ask a variant of that question ("what would your last supervisor say is your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness?"), because we want to know the answer. It's not necessarily a "gotcha!" question at all. If you're otherwise a great candidate, we want to know that you're aware of any potential challenges, and we want to be aware of them, too, so we can address them before they become a problem. And yeah, we do get the bs "I'm too much of a perfectionist" sometimes, but on the other hand, this is a job field which a)tends to attract perfectionists, and b)in which that can be a real problem.

Just this week we offered a position to a terrific guy who answered the "weakness" question by looking at us as if we were crazy, and saying "well, I have a very strong accent to my English, and that sometimes frustrates people I'm trying to help." Did it hurt his prospects at all? No, but if he hadn't acknowledged the issue, we probably wouldn't have hired him.

(As far as the "gotcha!" question goes, my favorite has always been the one my husband used when interviewing applicants to med school. Q: Why do you want to be a physician? A: ALWAYS some boilerplate about being "people-oriented", interested in "caring" and "healing" and "helping". (NEVER "Because I want to be treated like a god!", let alone "Because I want to make busloads of money!") Follow-up Q: So why didn't you apply to a nursing program? A: Nine times out of ten, random sputtering syllables...)

[mmack]

I won't get into how she said to deal with "do you want children"...

"No thanks, I just ate lunch and couldn't finish another thing! Thanks for offering, though."

[Caravelle]

Luckily, nobody I ever interviewed for asked me this--except for Vile Ex-Boss. Which should have been a goddamn sign, really.

I was asked, (actually it was "name three qualities and three weaknesses you have") and I really think it was a test because I only got to mention one or two weaknesses before they moved on. Tsk. (the second time it happened I actually stopped the guy, going "and my other weakness is..." because I'd worked on finding three qualities and three weaknesses, dammit. Fortunately this didn't cost me the job...)

@hapax : like a lot of things I find job interviews are a mixture of common sense, common sense that's been formalised and rituals that have become (or always were) meaningless. It's easy to bash the whole thing for the last bits, but it's true you still need to screen applicants somehow...

[jamoche]

I just had my annual review and got asked if there was anything I thought I wasn't good at. Now, I've been doing software development since Apple ][ days, by this point I've got a pretty good handle on what I'm not good at, and I don't take jobs where I have to do it - I don't like database programming, I don't want to be a manager, so I don't take database jobs or angle for a management "promotion". I think the latter is what she was aiming at, that I hadn't demonstrated aptitude for the sort of things that would contribute to such a "promotion".

Not sure if she got that I knew that but just didn't see it as a job-related lack worthy of mention in a review. It's not like they're starved for manager candidates, or that my career would be at a dead end if I didn't move in that direction.

[Tonio]

The interviewer doesn't care and doesn't think we should care. All that matters is whether or not the politician in question has demonstrated the required mastery of the art of staying on message.

Fred, you probably know that "staying on message" is stressed by public relations experts. This Robert Dole interview is a famous example of not staying on message. My question is, do you believe that Russert and his colleagues consciously want to test the candidates' mastery of staying on message, or that this is simply how the interviews appear?

[Tonio]

Link be gone!

[Ian]

People like Tim Russert only know how to report on gaffes. If the lead story were sometimes "in a spontaneous remark today, Hillary Clinton said something that was (surprising/insightful/heartwarming/pretty funny/etc.) -- let's roll the tape" then we'd see fewer formulaic, on-message replies.

Maybe the tide is turning -- Rudy "911 is a joke" Giuliani's campaign self-destructed in large part because he seemed incapable of doing anything other than staying on message.

[damnedyankee]

"My awesomeness, like the sun, can be blinding"

Things to do this weekend: Apply for a job that I do not need just to give the interviewer this answer.

[Spherical Time]

Ian: Maybe the tide is turning -- Rudy "911 is a joke" Giuliani's campaign self-destructed in large part because he seemed incapable of doing anything other than staying on message.

I don't know about that. 9/11 was his strong point, after all. It was his personality, weakness on any other areas, etc, that I think really brought him down. He doesn't have any substance.

[Salamanda]

mmack: "My biggest weakness? I can't give good answers to bullshit questions."

*SNORT*

You sir, are brilliant. I'm making it a personal goal to use that line one day...

[damnedyankee]

9/11 was his strong point, after all.

In the aftermath to 9/11 it was. Not so much later on, when people felt safe enough to point out that, hey, maybe placing the emergency response headquarters inside of the likeliest target for terrorist attack wasn't such a good idea, among other things...

[libraripagan]

Well, I've heard they're a bit more subtle than that ("Do you like children ?"), but I wouldn't know, I wasn't asked.

My instinctive response: "Will I be *working* with children?"

Assuming the answer is no: "Will I be working with adults who *act* like children?"

(Okay, I probably *wouldn't* say that, but, I'd be tempted.)

[Steve]

"My awesomeness, like the sun, can be blinding"

Yeah, I'll be conducting six interviews next week. If anyone gives me this answer, they automatically win!

[Jesurgislac]

I like to smile politely and say "So this is when you ask me what my weaknesses are and I say 'I work too hard, I'm too much of a perfectionist'?"

(Actually, my favorite question of this kind was when the interviewer said "What do you like least about being a technical writer?" and I said "Microsoft Word" and we all collapsed in giggles.

[Steve]

BTW, I like asking the weaknesses question (or something similar) to see:
- How they handle a difficult question...i.e. are they prepared for this?
- How honest they are...or do they B.S. (like hey, if Russert hadn't asked this, maybe you don't have the opportunity to reflect on Obama's honesty?)
- And if they are honest, which I'm hoping, is that going to be a major detriment to the job or the team, or is that okay.

But I work in the touchy feely world of faith-based non-profit human services. On that note, I better get back to work now because I am just so passionate about helping poor people.

[damnedyankee]

But would you say that that's your greatest weakness, Steve?

[Steve]

To add to the above: I view interviews as going both ways. I.e. I might be interviewing for a job, but I'm also trying to figure out "do I want to work here?" So I want to be fairly honest myself because if they don't think I'm a good fit, I'd rather know that now rather than six months down the road. Now granted, my last interview was for Executive Director of a non-profit. I planned to be there a while (coming up on four years) and wanted to make sure it was an organization that my style and gifts were a match for.

Of course, none of this may apply if you are desperate for a job...and compared to most people in the world, it is a luxury to be selective about where you work.

[Steve]

But would you say that that's your greatest weakness, Steve?

Sometimes I get so concerned with helping homeless people that I don't get enough sleep or exercise.

[Steve]

Sometimes I get so concerned with helping homeless people that I don't get enough sleep or exercise.

I have a colleague who, if I ever have trouble reaching him by phone, says upon me finally reaching him "sorry, I was out saving homeless people."

[aunursa]

Jon: As for the "debate" scenario, one wonders why questions are asked at all if the whole point is simply give the candidate an opportunity to stay on message. Why not just give them the pulpit and let them say their piece?
I suppose that wouldn't allow us/the moderator to gauge how well they can relate everything back to their central theme, though.

The candidates are free to buy air time if they want to stay on message. A debate is the only opportunity for them to face the questions that need to be asked but that they don't want to answer.

[Bugmaster]

My awesomeness, like the sun, can be blinding

We need a T-shirt with that line on it. Or, at the very least, a set of business cards. That way, we can hand them out to stupid interviewers.

[infernalserpent]

Actually, my favorite question of this kind was when the interviewer said "What do you like least about being a technical writer?" and I said "Microsoft Word" and we all collapsed in giggles.

I had that question and gave that answer in an interview for a Microsoft job. Got a great offer, too (even if I ended up turning it down). Christ, I hate Word.

[mcc]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/11/12

In my interview for my current position I would have rather been asked inane questions, as the interviewer turned the process around by continually saying, "What questions do you have for me?"

Hm, I actually really appreciate it when an interviewer opens the floor for that. But it only really makes sense for the interviewer to lob that one once, at the end of the interview...

[Drak Pope]

No employer wants to know your greatest weakness. In fact, I bet most people don't even know what their greatest weakness is; they may know one of their rather limited weaknesses, but they have almost no awareness of that painfully niggling chink in their armor, that grotesque flaw that will stop them from ever surpassing the upper limits of their potential. For someone to be self-cognizant enough to know of such a flaw yet still care enough about a summer job at McDonalds' to answer truthfully is difficult to believe.

[Daniel Martin]

You know, I had been bitching and moaning the other day about having to think up interview questions for candidates, (and then thinking up new ones if those questions find their way out onto the net) but I'm really glad I've never been in a position to have to evaluate an answer to one of those questions.

I'll gladly stick to the "Describe the algorithm for a depth-first graph traversal" or "How would you find out if a machine's stack grows up or down in memory?" questions. (but not those exact questions, since I just found them online)

[hapax]

Daniel Martin, I am personally most often satisfied with the answers to the questions: "Why do you want this position?" and "What are your principal qualifications for it?"

[Monkay]

the upper limits of their potential
Not to get mean about it, but potential for what? The upper limits of my potential for ganja consumption? Games of Spider Solitaire in a row? Dollars in the bank? Number of friends on MySpace? And while I'm ranting about metrics, what's this about doing our best all the time? Doesn't that lead to just being average?

[baf]

As far as I'm concerned, if you ask someone what their greatest weakness is, and they don't say "Mortality", they're not taking the question seriously enough.

[Monkay]

Kryptonite!

[Jon]

The candidates are free to buy air time if they want to stay on message. A debate is the only opportunity for them to face the questions that need to be asked but that they don't want to answer.

True enough, but that's rather the point; they aren't being asked those questions, or at the very least they aren't being held accountable when they fail to answer them if they are asked.
Ultimately, then, it ends up being free air time for them, and it seems odd to me that any pretense to the contrary is being put forth. If you're not going to have an actual debate, just skip the pretense and give the candidates equal amounts of time to spout off on their messages.
Now, if the moderator were to say "You didn't actually answer the question that you were asked; try again," and keep at it until we did get real answers, that would be worthwhile.

[Jon]

Hm, I actually really appreciate it when an interviewer opens the floor for that. But it only really makes sense for the interviewer to lob that one once, at the end of the interview...

Outside of a general overview of the job responsibilities and a few generic questions (mostly him asking me to rate myself on a scale of 1 to 10 in regards to various skills), that was pretty much what the entire interview consisted of.
He'd say, "So what questiond do you have for me?" I'd come up with something, he'd answer, he'd say it again, I'd come up with another question, he'd answer, repeat. It was kind of disorienting - which I suppose may have been the point - and left me with a very poor sense of how the interview actually went, leading me to be more than a little surprised when I got the call and was told that I was, by far, the frontrunner for the position. I guess I asked the right questions.

[Bugmaster]

When I interview people, I start by asking really simple questions ("how do you convert an int to an Integer, and vice versa ?") just to get them off their guard. I then slide into more advanced territory, such as algorithmic complexity, data structures, and graph theory if there's time. Sure, I could just flat out ask them, "how good of a Java programmer are you ?", but the answer would be meaningless. I want to know if they can solve real problems, not if they can BS their way through a resume. I already know how good their BS abilities are. I'm looking at their resume, after all.

[bulbul]

"What are your weaknesses?" the interviewer asks, reading from the standardized list of questions in the prepared script.
I actually got that one at a job interview, about a year ago, from a man roughly my age with an expensive suit (way too expensive for a junior HR manager) who sported what we here call an American smile* - frozen facial muscles, no emotion - and who up until that point had asked me just about every cliche bullshit interview question you can imagine. I paused for a second, then I leaned in and in a booming voice (or at least the best imitation thereof I could manage, my natural register is quite high for a dude) I said "I have none, for I am perfect in all ways. Tremble before me, mere mortal!**" There were a few seconds of silence and then other interviewer, a lady in her forties, started laughing uncontrollably. Once she composed herself, she asked the guy - whose face was Soviet-Union-flag red by then - to excuse us and when he was gone, she offered me the job. I said I would think about it and asked her to send me a formal offer. We stood up and shook hands and just as I turned to walk out she said "One more thing, sir: where do you see yourself in five years?" I had been waiting for that one the entire interview and so I didn't miss a beat: "Lying on a beach somewhere, ma'am, with a Mojito in my right hand, a Cohiba in my left and a Victoria's Secret model lying next to me."
I didn't take the job, but by Jove, that was the best interview evah.

* No offense.
** Not a perfect translation, "mere mortal" doesn't even come close to "ľudský červ".

[Jesurgislac]

...you know, it occurs to me that the next time I go for a job interview, if they ask "What's your biggest weakness" and I plan on giving an honest answer, it ought to be "Hanging out on blogs like Slacktivist".

Hm.

Good thing I wasn't planning on giving an honest answer.

OTOH, if I disappear from here for a while, it's probably because I've changed jobs to one a lot less flexible. Don't let hapax send out the hounds.