Note to readers: time tangle ahead/behind

 
I’ll in the near future back-post several articles, so please don’t get confused.

Back-post is a word I just made up. It means that I’ll publish posts I wrote or drafted a while ago and date them with the date they were written to keep my blog-chronology intact. That way they won’t (I think) pop up in news feeds and won’t get as much attention as they would if they were posted ‘today’, and that’s fine.

Reasons I don’t always publish posts I write include privacy concerns (like: need more time to think about whether I’ll be OK to have [post] on the Internet), and when I don’t have time to properly wrap up a post and check it for errors. Then after a while, when I have time, I have sort of moved on from there, and the post seems old.

 
Spin-off archive

Many drafts begin as branches and never make it through the quality control. My posts tend to grow and branch out while I write them; and I solve that by cutting off the ‘branches’ and save each as a new draft. That way it is easier to let inspiring, but side-tracking topics go.

 

The ‘branching drafts’ technique keeps the blog clean…

Research interviewer training course

The interviewer training course for my new part time job as a research interviewer stretched over two weeks with a total of six days course work plus homework.

The training days were intensive and comprised going through the interviewer handbook from cover to cover, doing exercises and discussing scenarios, categories and definitions (and tricky obscure grey zone cases), and undertake interviews as role plays.

The course culminated in an assessment session where each trainee undertook a row of simulated interviews involving tricky scenarios. The assessment interviews were monitored by the supervisors and the forms checked by the office’s data entry staff right in front of us. An excellent, effective yet relaxed exam; and great practice too.

 
The oracle handbook

The interviewer handbook was the training’s backbone. It pretty much has the answer to any potential problem in chronological order.

The handbook follows the structure of the interview procedure from initial contact, communication and rapport building over interviews to the admin procedure and paysheet records. Every code and category of the interview forms has its own sub-chapter with numerous examples of when they apply and when they don’t.

 

Sample loss

 
There are sections about how to motivate the respondents through attentive listening (which details key attentive listening techniques and how to combine them), and one with common respondents objections with a script for how to address every one of them.

I like how there is a rule for any choice and a script for any communication. I wish I had a handbook like that for my life, that would solve many problems.

 

Scripted communication (we are supposed to memorise it though)

 
The handbook also briefly outlines the statistical principles behind the random selection sampling criteria and why it is fundamental to the value of the data (no statistical models shown at all though;-)

What does a research interviewer do

I have completed the interviewer course for my new part time job, passed the assessment (everybody did) and received my work kit and work sets for the next quarter, so I am now officially a research interviewer trainee.

The survey is a large scale social research project about certain usage patterns and their correlation with geographical and socio-economic variables such as location, household size, work, education, income and habits. The purpose is to enable the client to forecast future needs for certain infrastructure in the region and provide customised data analysis to their clients*.

 
Approach & engage respondents

Data are collected through face to face interviews with every household member in a number of randomly selected households without replacement. That is, a selected household can’t be replaced with another household if they refuse to participate or no one is home, because that would cause selection bias (the survey would no longer comply with the random selection criteria).

If just one household member in a selected household refuses to participate or can’t be interviewed for whatever reason, then that data set isn’t complete, and the survey data quality takes a notch down. Every household member must be interviewed to comply – adults, kids, pets, anything with a pulse (just kidding – pets are exempted;-)

 

‘Please, Oh Please Let Me Interview You!’

 
Therefore, multiple (sometimes many) visits to each household are required to get in contact, make interview appointments and undertake all the interviews.

 
Ensure data accuracy

Data accuracy is paramount; so attention to detail and keeping tack of all the data is essential. Responsibilities include: cross-reference interview forms during visits to pick up on contradictions between household members’ answers; be versatile in the definitions, categories and codes; and handle grey zones / special cases.

No Yes! I got the job!

My last post was about not getting the job as a Research Interviewer. Now I got it anyway!

What are the odds of being called back and offered a job after first being rejected? They called me again and asked if I am still interested. The lady said that they have more work in my area and have reconsidered what I said about being fine with the risks and interviewing people with different socio-economic backgrounds. Yay! I start training next week!

 
Preparation & probation

The preparation requirements and planning (which I have already received in writing) are thought through and fair and well organised, as everything seems to be with this organisation.

There is a questionnaire to hand in by the start of the course. It seems to be a sort of exam in the organisation’s values and the character and duties of the job. I’ll also need pass photos and a ‘fit for work certificate’ from my GP this week.

The formal job offer will be given by the end of the seven day training course. As is the norm in Australia, the first 3 months of the job is a probation period where I can get sacked without any specific reason and virtually no notice. So the job isn’t secure as such, but this is a start, and an income… which is a great improvement since last week.

 
Preliminary worries

With this success on board, I have started to worry about the training. Not the training itself, but the seven days of social challenges.

Job interview rejection: safety reasons

I got the reply for the research interviewer job – I didn’t get the job.

This time I did have the nerve to ask why, and the reason took me by surprise. First of all, they do think I would be able do the job well. However:

There are some pretty rogue areas in the region I was meant to cover, and I am not native to the area. We just moved here in January. They worried that it may not be safe for me to drive around by myself and visit strangers after dark, not knowing what risk factors to look out for. My closest competitor for the job was, apparently, a local guy who has grown up here and knows all the local dos and don’ts. That’s what tipped the balance out of my favour this time.

The rejection is very disappointing, and the reason very unexpected.

 
In hindsight, they did ask a lot about safety

Now when I re-think the interview, I can see it coming.

I recall they asked how I like the area I live in and kept circling around that topic. I thought it was just ice-breaker small talk. I said that although I have been told there are some rogue streets with housing commissions, I haven’t personally seen any and live in a nice section of the neighbourhood myself.

They also asked how well I know the area, to which I replied ‘not very well yet’. I then talked about GPS, assuming what they asked was how good I would be at finding my way around (a weak point which I was anxious to play down). They asked how I would feel to visit unfamiliar streets in rogue neighbourhoods after dark, being all by myself, and I said ‘fine, I don’t have a problem with that’. They circled repeatedly around this type of questions, and I should have noticed the gravitational centre the questions evolved around, but I didn’t.

I said that I feel confident and safe, that I usually respond calmly to aggression, and that I am not afraid of darkness and strangers. I aimed to convey confidence and reassure them that I would not run away from the job in panic. I repeated that I don’t have a problem with the risks when the lady called to tell me they gave the job to someone else because they thought it would be too dangerous for me.

However, now I see it: the issue is not how I feel about the risks. The issue is how risky they think the job actually is for me. They evaluated it to be too risky relative to the local guy.

 

Is Wolf Creek in my neighbourhood? I don’t think so.

 
‘Not native to the area’. To be fair, I am not even native to this country. It does have significantly higher crime rates and socio-economic imbalance than my native country. And I did mention that I have grown up in a very safe country, and that that’s probably why I tend to feel safe. FAIL.

 
Women are vulnerable targets?

The whole ‘women* are vulnerable to predatory attacks’ theme seems culturally alien to me.

I imagine that the risk of falling victim to random predatory violence (‘stranger danger’) varies wildly depending on the situation and bad luck. I see the risk profile of each individual fluctuating along an invisible normal distribution curve subject to a multitude of external and personal risk factors