"Bugger of a question, isn't it?" Relational talk in graduate job interviews between NZ employers and migrant/international students

The challenges facing migrant professionals in entering the NZ workplace have been well documented by Victoria University’s Language in the Workplace Project (e.g. Marra 2013), and particular attention has recently been paid... [ view full abstract ]

The challenges facing migrant professionals in entering the NZ workplace have been well documented by Victoria University’s Language in the Workplace Project (e.g. Marra 2013), and particular attention has recently been paid to developing new resources for succeeding in job interviews (Riddiford, 2017). These help address such mismatches of expectations as are shaped by candidates’ experiences of job interviews in other countries (cf. Roberts 2006, Hawthorne 1992). The challenges facing born-abroad students about to graduate in the NZ higher education system are in some ways comparable and certainly as pressing. For all candidates whose backgrounds are defined as culturally different, the complexity involved in negotiating competency-based interview questions may be compounded by having to sell oneself “with appropriate tokens of modesty” (Roberts 1985) and by having to manage other important aspects of relational talk. These may be crucial in developing rapport with the interviewer and signalling that a candidate can fit in to the workplace.

Although research in the university context has indicated that born-abroad students may demonstrate the particular discursive skill needed to negotiate a typical New Zealand graduate job interview as effectively as home students, studies illuminating the role of relational and transactional talk are lacking. Paying attention to both functions of talk has been shown in other contexts to be important, for example in interviews involving born-abroad candidates in the UK (Campbell & Roberts 2007). Drawing on a dataset of 30 graduate job interviews collected at the University of Auckland, the presentation highlights the relevance of relational talk and its salience in settings that may or may not be consciously perceived and/or treated as intercultural by interviewers and/or interviewees. The analytical commentary is illustrated by examples that reveal participants’ orientations to interactional goals, one of the three bases of rapport (along with behavioural expectations and face sensitivities) identified by Spencer-Oatey (2008). Small talk, humour, and other attempts at finding common ground are discussed in terms of possible implications for creating a more level playing field for born-abroad graduates to play what Roberts (1985) notably called “the interview game”.