Are you a music fan? Do you listen to podcasts? When you listen to prerecorded content, do you listen actively or passively? Does what you’re listening to have your complete attention, or are you trying to do a variety of other things while listening? Most of our listening in the course of our day is passive. We hear lots of things. Some we absorb and some we dismiss. But the ability to discern the difference comes from active, versus passive listening. When the content is important to you, you listen far more actively and attentively than when it’s going in one ear and out the other.
Passive listening is fine when consuming entertainment. Yes, you might miss something subtle, or minor, but you are still likely to take in the majority of what you’re hearing. And what you miss, may not be that important to you at that time. The nice thing about prerecorded content is that you can go back and listen to it again if you did miss something.
When we engage in conversations with people whose knowledge and opinions matter to us, we tend to pay more attention than during casual interactions. If the content is important to us – regardless of what that content is – we pay more attention. Isn’t what’s being said during an interview worthy of active listening?
Obviously, being an active listener is a great skill for a job seeker. Many job seekers have shared their belief they didn’t get hired because of the way they answered certain questions, probably due to their being inattentive. This is not uncommon. When an employer or interviewer isn’t satisfied with your response to a question (one you may or may not think is relevant to job you’re hoping to get), the end result is usually not being called in for a second interview or being turned down for the job outright. Good or bad, right or wrong, the employer’s job is to assess you and your qualifications. Certainly, the quality of your work history and your references play a role in their decision-making process, but none of that matters if the interviewer isn’t happy with your responses to their questions.
Job candidates often do not listen as carefully to the questions being asked as would be most beneficial, and therefore can’t provide the proper answers. There are many reasons why this happens: Momentary distractions, over-confidence, the interviewer’s accent or other language-related issue, interview style, boredom, not enough sleep the night before, and, simply not paying enough attention to the questions.
A good interviewee is an Active listener. They are paying close attention to everything their inquisitors say and ask. A job candidate who listens actively recognizes that even though a question may seem trite, or not immediately relevant to the job being interviewed for, the interviewer may be probing to learn more about them, their perspectives, their communication skills, their potential to successfully integrate into the company, their ability to assess information and provide salient solutions.
Interviewers are human, they make mistakes, and they don’t always ask questions as applicants think they should be asked, or don’t ask the kinds of questions the candidate was most prepared to answer. Being an active listener enables you to navigate their queries to provide the information they are really looking for in their efforts to make a hiring decision.
There are also the Passive listeners. These are the candidates who take their participation in the interview as a given. They firmly believe they’ve earned the interview and are so confident that they’ll get a job offer that they don’t pay close enough attention to what is being asked. These candidates are thinking of a million and one other things other than where their concentration should be focused, on the interview at hand. Many of these candidates believe they’ve heard It all before, are (perhaps overly) confident that the job is in the bag, and they are taking the whole interview process for granted.
When the job market is exceptionally competitive (a lot of people looking for work and not enough companies that are hiring), as it as these days, taking an interview for granted and being passive about the process, is a waste of your time, and that of the interviewer. Not being active in your listening during an interview (or any job search-related activity) is disrespectful to the interviewer and others whom you want to take professional notice of you!
Before going into that interview, take a moment to gather your focus so that you are fully engaged and prepared to actively listen to what is being said and asked. That attentiveness will contribute to your making a positive impression with the employer. If you want to practice active listening in detail, select an unfamiliar piece of music and really listen. Try to identify individual instruments, differences in playing styles, find the nuances that you’d miss if you were only passively listening. And don’t forget the importance of strengthening your ability to actively listen in the conversations you have on a daily basis. You don’t have an instant replay button in real life, so it’s important to always listen carefully to what is being said. Those around you will appreciate it!
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