You are about to go for a job interview, but first you will be kept waiting in the interviewer’s office. During that time, you can observe clues about your interviewer and perhaps about the organization. What clues do you think are significant and revealing? What personal experiences in your own past affect how you observe and make judgements in this setting? This exercise can be completed in class time, but is more effective if steps 1 to 3 are completed in advance. For a one-hour tutorial, time will be tight without preparation.

Step 1 Read the manager’s room description, to get a feel for the setting in which you find yourself. 

Step 2 Complete the analysis sheet. 

• In the data column, record those observations that you find significant and revealing about the kind of person who occupies this room.

• In the inferences column, note the perceptions or conclusions that you reach from your data.

• In the experiences column, record past incidents or events, recent or distant, that you think influence your inferences.

 Step 3 Using that analysis, construct a profile of your interviewer.

Step 4 Finally, record your answers to the following questions:

1. What is the sex, marital status, and ethnic background of the managing director? Identify the data in the room that lead you to your inferences.

2. How would you describe the managing director’s character? What are this person’s interests? What would you expect this person’s management style to be like? Once again, identify the data on which you base these judgements.

3. Given your own personality, do you think that you would be happy working for this person?

4. Explain how your analysis illustrates the concepts of selective attention, perceptual organization, perceptual world, halo effect, and stereotyping.

Step 5 Present your findings, according to your instructor’s directions.

You are now in the company offices, top floor, for your job interview. It sounds like your ideal position. As personal assistant, you will be working for the managing director who has asked to interview you. You have arrived on time, but the managing director’s secretary apologizes and tells you there will be a delay. The managing director has been called to an important meeting which will take up to fifteen minutes. The secretary tells you that you are welcome to wait in the managing director’s private office, and shows you in. You know that you will be alone here for fifteen minutes. You look around the room, curious about the person with whom you may be working. The shallow pile carpet is a warm pink, with no pattern. You choose one of six high-backed chairs, upholstered in a darker fabric that matches well with the carpet and curtains, and with polished wooden arms. In the centre of the ring of chairs is a low glass-topped coffee table. On the wall behind you is a large photograph of a vintage motor car, accompanied by its driver in leather helmet, goggles, scarf, and long leather coat; you can’t make out the driver’s face. The window ledge holds four plants arranged equal distances apart; two look like small exotic ferns and the others are a begonia and a geranium in flower. On the other side of the room sits a large wooden executive desk, with a black leather chair. A framed copy of the company’s mission statement hangs on the wall behind the desk, and below that sits a black leather briefcase with combination locks. The plain grey wastepaper basket by the wall beside the desk is full of papers. At the front of the desk sits a pen-stand with a letter opener. To the side is a ‘state of the art’ laptop computer and a desk lamp. In front of the lamp sits a metal photograph frame holding two pictures. One is of an attractive woman in her thirties with a young boy around eight years old. The other photograph is of a retriever dog in a field to the side of some farm buildings. In front of the framed photographs is a stack of file folders. Immediately in front of the chair, on the desk, is a small pile of papers, and a Mont Blanc pen with the company logo on the barrel. On the other side of the desk is a delicate china mug. In front of it lies what looks like a leather-covered address book or perhaps a diary, a passport, and a pad of yellow paper. Beside the pad there is a pile of unopened mail with envelopes of differing sizes. On top of the mail and behind are some half-folded newspapers: The Guardian, The Independent, and The Financial Times. You note that there is no telephone on the desk. Behind the desk is a small glass-fronted display case. There are some books lined up on top of the case: Plugged In: The Generation Y Guide to Thriving at Work, The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Quotations, Managing Difficult Interactions, and Shattering the Glass Ceiling. Also on top of the case sits a small bronze statue, of a man sitting with his legs crossed in a yoga position. There is a cheese plant on the far side of the display case. Inside the case, there are computing systems manuals and books and pamphlets on employment law, many of which deal with race and sex discrimination issues. You decide to get up and look out the window. There is a three-seater settee under the window, covered in the same fabric as the armchairs with matching scatter cushions in the corners. From the window you can easily see people shopping and children playing in the nearby park. You turn to another table beside the settee. Several magazines sit in front of a burgundy ceramic lamp with a beige shade. There are two recent copies of The Economist, and a copy each of Asia Today, Classic CD, and Fortune. As you head back to your chair, you notice that the papers on the desk in front of the chair are your application papers and curriculum vitae. Your first name, obviously indicating your sex, has been boldly circled with the Mont Blanc pen. As the managing director may return at any moment, you go back and sit in your chair to wait.