September 2003
In the July column, Philip Sallee (salleep@isp.state.il.us), a member of the Central Illinois ASPA Chapter, posed a most interesting inquiry:
“I'm working on updating interview questions for individuals seeking employment with my agency. I'd like to add an ethics question. Specifically, I'd like a question without a clear-cut 'correct' answer. I don't want the applicants to think we want a specific answer. The situations presented in your column often don't have clear-cut answers for PA professionals, but for an applicant, getting the question from an interviewer, they might appear to. I'm interested in how a potential employee reaches a decision more so than the decision itself. Can you suggest an appropriate question?”
A number of ASPA members offered suggestions. Larry Cobb (ethicsworks@aol.com) suggested that the interviewer ask: “Talk about how you would approach a situation where your supervisor asks you to do something that to your mind is legal, but unethical.” Terry Rhodes (trhodes@pdx.edu) suggested that the interviewer ask the candidate to react to the following: “If you were a manager and you had received a verbal acceptance for a position and then the person wished to withdraw for a better offer elsewhere, what would you do?” Terry feels that this provides an opportunity for the person to indicate how he/she thinks about things, i.e., what they would take into consideration and so forth.
Ann Hess (Ann.Hess@ci.boston.ma.us) says: “I ask a specific question during the interview process by posing a hypothetical situation. When I interview staff for the City Council (one staff 14 bosses), I try to gauge an applicant's understanding of the need to be confidential while respecting divergent interests across bosses.
The hypo goes like this: You as a Central Staff member are asked to compile some research for one councillor. Another councillor comes to you with a request for information on the same issue, but the councillor has a different position on the issue. Part I: How do you comply with each person's request? Part II: The first councillor comes back to you and asks who else is working on the issue and what else have you produced for them. What do you say?
I usually give the applicant five minutes to draft some informal comments and responses and then we talk about it. I look for how they come to the decision - while no specific right answer, better candidates will discuss wanting to know level of confidentiality in advance, providing both sides of the story to both councillors with focus on the particular position they are advocating, the inability to disclose who else they are doing research for and how they present that fact to the requesting councillor with respect and understanding. It covers a lot of ground.