The Word "Sucks" Doesn't Belong in a Job Interview!

by Joy L.
(New Hampshire)

I'm happy to say that this is an experience that took place when I was interviewer, not interviewEE! I was a Human Resources Manager, interviewing candidates for a generalist role, and we had a top candidate whom all the team really liked. This was a very competitive situation with 5 finalists, all with excellent credentials.

The team's favorite candidate was Susan, who was a recent college graduate and very energetic. She was friendly and had a great sense of humor, and we were looking forward to the final round of interviews with our VP, who would give final approval on our choice.

Imagine our surprise when we learned that our VP didn't approve of hiring Susan! She agreed that Susan was charming, energetic and well-educated. She also had a solid background of work experience from her internships and part-time jobs. The problem was, she had used the word "sucks" in the interview with our VP!

Now, we all agreed that most people nowadays say that word in common conversation - it's even freely used on TV! But the problem is, our VP still felt that it has no place in business conversation. If Susan casually said, "The weather is too cold - winter really Sucks!" to our VP in a job interview, then chances are she'd say "something sucks" to almost anyone, and it just didn't seem professional.

As much as we wanted to overlook that incident, it wasn't possible in this case. We had to select our next choice... all because of one poorly chosen word.

The message stayed with me, and I've passed it on to my kids (in their 20's) - it's important to consider things like this in a job interview!