Recently a family member asked my 8 year old granddaughter, “Do you know your multiplication tables yet?” She answered, “What are multiplication tables?” Now, she is good at math and has some sense of what multiplication is- she just was not sure about the tables part.
Immediately, I thought that is how I often feel as a baby boomer who is in an interview with a millennial. I am talking multiplication tables and they only kind of, sort of have an idea of what they are and why they are important. Or are they important? Have they gone the way of cursive writing?
Is it my responsibility to talk in the language of the interviewer? What if there is a panel with a multi-generational group of people? Do I answer one question one way and one another? Or is it the organization’s language since they chose to interview me after noting the experience on my resume. Or is the organization’s language different depending on the age group or department? The answer to all of these questions is yes. To differentiate yourself as a candidate, the prime responsibility needs to be on you, since other candidates may “speak” the language of the interviewer/panel.
Research on generations indicates that baby boomers generally think in details and may have a tendency to explain too much. Gen X’ers want the bullet point answers. And how can millennials understand what the workplace was like just 10 years ago? Many of them did not have the opportunity to even work a high school job since those positions were taken by persons supporting families.
Recently, I assisted a mature person on their resume/ interviewing skills. His career had been in sales management which he leveraged to get into a Human Resource management role at a small division of a large company- he performed all the main HR functions. When that job ended, he worked several part time positions. Moving to a different state, he started applying and interviewing for part-time positions. He felt that because he had been an HR manager, younger people did not consider him seriously. I explained that HR had changed significantly since he was last in it and, of course, younger people resonated with how HR is today. We changed his title to Internal Customer Liaison/HR- which got results.
To be able to communicate well, it is our responsibility to pay attention to the different generations and personalities that we are interacting with and adjust our style to complement their understanding. When we are the person being interviewed, we continually need to remember that when we are answering a question, those on the other side of the table may be pondering, “What are multiplication tables?”
Deb Squire, Career/ Life Coach
540-798-9882
“Live Life Like The World Is Rigged In Your Favor”