Strange Interview Behavior

[Bryan D]

The diorama in a shoebox sounds like a good idea. It would be even better if the characters are poseable though.

 

[Resume Writer]

TIS,


I am not sure if you are correct in your view of the person that has to prove slander/libel/defamation. It is hard to really understand how it works. There are two "burdens of proof;" one for the victim and one for the defendant. I found a website that states some interesting facts, although I think it states things from a journalistic standpoint.

In English and American law, and systems based on them, libel and slander are two forms of defamation (or defamation of character), which is the tort or delict of making a false statement of fact that injures someone's reputation. "Defamation" is however the generally-used term internationally, and is accordingly used in this article where it is not necessary to distinguish between "libel" and "slander".

In most legal systems the courts give the benefit of the doubt to the person who is being tried. Depending on the applicable burden of proof, he or she is presumed to be innocent until the prosecution can prove beyond a reasonable doubt, or to the balance of probabilities, that this is not the case.

Once the offended party meets the burden of proof that the publisher made a defamatory statement, the untruth of that statement is presumed, so that the burden of proving it was true and/or in the public interest falls onto the publisher of the statement.

This prevents the victim from being essentially "tried" in the media or anywhere else outside a legal system. The victim remains innocent and the burden of proof properly is shifted to the publisher of the statement (the accuser). Without this protection, the victim of a defamatory statement would have to prove his innocence in order to prevail. With this protection, the notion of "innocent until proven guilty" partially is extended to anyone accused outside the legal system.

Kathy

 

[Flechas]

Very interesting. When I interviwed with XJT, one of the candidates didn't have a blazer. When we were waiting he said "I didn't see anywhere that you had to wear a blazer" Duh....

 

[RampTower]

One recurring (no no) theme I hear at pilot interviews is your attitude. And more specifically, at airlines with turboprops and jets. Candidates come out to say they will not fly a turboprop if hired into it. Buh bye.. NEXT!

 

[TIS]

I stand (partially) corrected

TIS,


I am not sure if you are correct in your view of the person that has to prove slander/libel/defamation.

I'll cut you off there since after looking into it, I've found that you are correct and that there is indeed more to it than I originally suggested. But it only goes to a point. There's a reason you don't see bizillions of defamation suits out there. It's difficult to prove. But, in general it is an intersting portion of the law that employees should be very aware of.

Now, in aviation there's a thing called PRIA that grants qualified immunity to employers so that they may comment more freely on potentially defamatory issues. Incompetence, interestingly enough, is somthing that falls into this area if an employer makes or publishes statements regarding it. PRIA actually INVITES commentary on incompetence and makes it protected as long as it's true.

Anyway, the following is from a book called "Employee Survival Handbook" by David Hurd.

Probably the most important situation involving qualified privileges are those where your work is being evaluated in performance reviews or other evaluations of your conduct in the workplace.

Can your employer defame you in a performance review without being liable to you for defamation? Maybe. Maybe not. An employer loses his or her qualified privilege to make defamatory comments in critiquing you or your work when the defamatory statement is made,

1. Without a good faith belief in the truth of the statement; or
2. Without reasonable grounds for believing the truth of the statement; or
3. With a motive or willingness to vex, harass, annoy, or unjure you; or
4. Is exaggerated or not fully or fairly stated; or
5. The result of a reckless investigation; or
6. Motivated by hatred or ill will towards you.

Examples of statements that have been determined by the courts to be defamatory are those that involve; allegations of embezzlement, lying, irresponsibility, lack of integrity, dishonesty, laziness, incompetence, not being eligible for rehire, insubordination, being a traitor to the company, or having committed a criminal act.

As you can see, there are numerous situations where the employer risks losing his or her qualified privilege and if the privilege is lost, any publication of the false comment becomes defamatory and you will be entitled to damages for the injury to your reputation.

Other factors that may be considered in making a finding of defamation are whether the person making the statement knows or believes the statement to be true; whether the statement is the result of anger, jealousy, resentment, grudges, quarrels, ill-will or other conflict between you and the person making the statement.

In order to be defamatory the statement must be, of course, false. The employer has the burden of proving that the statement is not false In other words, the employer has to prove that the statement was true. The statement must also seem to state a fact, or that it is based on fact, rather than an opinion, or based only on opinion.

A statement made as a statement of opinion, rather than as an allegation of fact, is not defamatory.

Are statements made about you by a supervisor that are placed in your personnel file possibly libelous? If the statements are statements of opinion, rather than false statements of fact, they are not potentially libelous. The question to ask is, does the statement of opinion suggest that it is base on fact or is provable as a fact? Statements that may support a claim of libel are; false accusations of criminal conduct, lackof integrity, dishonesty, incompetence, or reprehensible personal moral behavior. For example, if you found in your personnel file, a false statement accusing you of suspected theft, such a statement would be libelous. Such a statement would imply to the average reader that it is confirmable as a fact, and is not just an unfounded personal opinion.

Be aware that a defamatory statement in your personnel file defames for as long as the statement exists in your file. What does this mean? This means that defamatory statements made 5, 10, or even 15 years ago, and placed in your personnel file may be subject to a lawsuit if they are still there in your file "attacking" your reputation or your good name up to the present time. The statute of limitations does not protect the employer on "old" statements that are still around to be seen or heard.

If you are an employee or supervisor-employee and you are accused of engaging in sexual harassment or some other offensive activity and the fact of the accusation is "published," your employer may be liable to you for defamation. If the employer notified other employees or other parties of the allegations against you , such conduct by the employer may be defamatory against you.

If you are defamed, the injury to your reputation affects a proprietary or "ownership" interest and is not a personal injury. This means that damages from defamation are not pre-empted by workers compensation. If the damages from defamation were thought to arise as a normal risk from the employment relationship and were regarded as a form of personal injury, rather than an injury to the "property" of your reputation, you would be forced to file a worker's compensation claim.You would not be able to sue in civil court.

You still have to prove that you were injured by things that were said that weren't true facts. That's the bottom line. It's not all that easy to do particularly in a business where the possible implications of injury to your reputation are so difficult to quantify.


TIS

 

[DC8 Flyer]

I would most likely have said something and they were probably waiting for him to say something. Since he did not, they probably questioned his judgment.


I would have perhaps made a comment such as, "Wow, all this hiring must really have you worn out. I can certainly understand, as sometimes we get too tired to perform our job, in which case we have the company find someone to replace us since safety is of the utmost importance. If you are too tired to continue, is there someone that can take your place?"

Might be kind of rude, but I would be very upset if someone fell asleep during my interview; especially after working so hard to get to that point in my career. Even if they were upset because he was 6 hours off on his times, that is completely unprofessional behavior on their part.

Kathy

Im sorry but crap like that at interviews is uncalled for and unprofessional. An interview is supposed to be a get to know you and make sure everything on paper matches the person, not some head game to see what you would do, its an unfair situation and unrealistic.

Not to sound high and mighty, by no means do I want to come across like that, but I have walked out of a few interviews after crap like that. I look at it as a two way street, they are interviewing me and I am interviewing them, if I don't like what I see I say thank you and excuse myself.

I've never understood this mentallity of being subserviant (sp?) to a job interview. All things being equal they need an employee as much as you need a job and if they dont want to treat you with respect then I dont want to work there. But thats just me.

 

[SWAnnabee]

Great post, DC8!

I recently left active duty as a Marine pilot and, like everyone else, was set on the airlines. I was aware of all the headgames and ridiculous HR questions but it didn't really sink in until my one and only interview. I left the interview with nagging feeling that I really didn't appreciate the process very much. I did not get the offer, although I was prepared and behaved professionally, followed all the interview advice, etc. Truth be told, I was not disappointed at not receiving the offer and didn't really want to endure anything similar. I kind of felt like I had sold myself out a bit with playing the game (reference the above post on subserviant interviewee).

I later interviewed with a major defense contractor and THIS was the interview that I always expected and felt was appropriate. No head games, no silly questions with canned kum-by-yah endings, just a review of my resume and past work experience, some time getting to know me, straight talk about the job and aviation and ending with friendly conversation. Got the job and very happy with the results.

I was describing the airline way of interviewing with my father, who is a surgeon, and a couple of his fellow doctors and we laughed at the idea of a surgeon interviewing for a job and being put through a simulated surgery to "test" his skills and TMAAT questions to determine your personality and decision making. The unanimous feeling was that if you have gotten this far in your career, tests like this are a professional insult.

In the end, my dislike for the interview process in the present airline industry, along with the general QOL, really turned me off. I hear stories of the days when an airline interview was similar to my defense contractor interview, maybe a couple of chief pilots asking some technical questions and exchanging flying stories, then a flight or brief sim with no tricks, just to see how you handle an aircraft. Just through this, you can still gather enough about a persons knowledge, judgement and suitability. I think the whole HR thing beginning about 20 or 30 years ago is a bit silly. Reminds me of a Jimmy Buffet song lyric, "Yes I am a pirate, 200 years too late."

 

[bafanguy]

Im sorry but crap like that at interviews is uncalled for and unprofessional. An interview is supposed to be a get to know you and make sure everything on paper matches the person, not some head game to see what you would do, its an unfair situation and unrealistic.

Not to sound high and mighty, by no means do I want to come across like that, but I have walked out of a few interviews after crap like that. I look at it as a two way street, they are interviewing me and I am interviewing them, if I don't like what I see I say thank you and excuse myself.

I've never understood this mentallity of being subserviant (sp?) to a job interview. All things being equal they need an employee as much as you need a job and if they dont want to treat you with respect then I dont want to work there. But thats just me.

DC8,

Dead on, Bro !! My only question is how have these HR folks convinced themselves that their methods produce a better product for the company ( isn't that the goal ? ). I'd like to see an independent study showing that games and confrontation are a better methodology than the process described by bozt45. The story about the UAL sleeping interviewer doesn't surprise me a bit. I've had many people tell stories about their UAL interview "adventure", and most were negative. I only know what I'm told by those who were there.

With the horrible state of the industry, companies are in the driver's seat and will just do what they want. It's their party so they get to say what party games will be played ( we ALL understand that reality ). Don't like it ?; then get out of the way cuz there's a line forming behind you full of people who WILL take what they're dishing out. They do it because they can.

I admit to being totally clueless; my last real interview was 1973. But, I have to wonder what long-term effect comes from a company full of employees whose first exposure to their employer was a negative experience.

 

[DC8 Flyer]

The aviation world is the only place I have really seen this kind of interview behavior though. Most of the time when I bring up this topic I usually get berated and told things like, be thankful you got an interview blah blah blah. I am always thankful for an interview but, just like the employeer, I have the ability to decide if I like it or not.

I took my first flying job with PDT and the interview was great, little 50 question test, 2 on 1 interview and some paperwork, felt relaxed and felt they where happy to have us there. When the time came to move on I sent my resume out all over and did some phone interviews, the one place I thought I would really want to go turned out to be a nightmare and I thus ended up interviewing with my current job and having an even better experience.

The sad thing is, most people think its ok to play those games, put people in lvl C or D full motion sims and expect ATP standards from them even though they have never flown the equipement, give them no win scenario questions that actually do have a right answer but its not what you would expect. The only way to make it stop is to get the word out about the dissatisfaction with the process and not interview at these places when they need workers. Of course Utopia is a city upstate New York, ie it will never happen. So we all need to do our part and when we get into those positions of hiring we need to make it known these practices are unprofessional and un-needed.

But what do I know, I'm just a dumb farmboy someone accidently let into the club.

 

[414Flyer]

I recently left active duty as a Marine pilot and, like everyone else, was set on the airlines. I was aware of all the headgames and ridiculous HR questions but it didn't really sink in until my one and only interview. I left the interview with nagging feeling that I really didn't appreciate the process very much. I did not get the offer, although I was prepared and behaved professionally, followed all the interview advice, etc. Truth be told, I was not disappointed at not receiving the offer and didn't really want to endure anything similar. I kind of felt like I had sold myself out a bit with playing the game (reference the above post on subserviant interviewee).

Thats one aspect that I would have a hard time with, is the selling your soul, both to the interviewer and to the airlines, where everyone wears the same clothes, with the dark suit, red tie and god forbid someones tie is not red, so that you can interview with the Borg of 121 and prove how you are not an individual

Some aspiring airline pilots live their life not for themselves, but to satisfy future airline interviewers. Seemingly everything they do is looked at in the context of what would an interviewer think. Some need to freaking live life for themselves for once, and quite worrying about what others think in regards to everything in life

I swear based on how some people seem to live that way, they probably have a flow and checklist system worked out for when taking a dump, so they can tell an interviewer how good they are with flows and checklists, and how they take a dump in safety conscious manner.