Schmoozing

“A schmoozer is someone who talks to people as if they really mattered”

Having returned from a lunch function awash with career-aspiring students and representatives of recruiting blue chip and financial firms, I felt inspired by the experience to do a spiel on schmoozing, being up to my neck in it today.

Part 1: The Story

Allow me to paint a picture. Another marvellously overcast Melbourne day, a light crisp wind blows, countering the warmth of the winter sun. I slip silently out of the tutorial, unnoticed and board my tram with a comfortable 20 minute contingency.

As the number 16 to St. Kilda pulls up at Lonsdale Street, a young, oddly dressed fellow engages the tram driver in a quarrel over bad “tram-etiquette” when he shuts the door on a few stragglers. Delays delays, does this fellow not realize he is holding up a tram full of people with places to be? After being shot numerous dirty glances, he decides to abandon his quest for moral supremacy over the driver and sits down to brood.

By this point, I’m late, and hearing the distorted chorus of ‘Strings of Life,’ I answer the call from Ava, whom I was meant to meet at twelve. For someone that holds out both being perpetually early and an aversion to negative emotions, the guilt from having a very good friend wait like that, especially with the cold, is excruciating. Lucky for your protagonist, Ava is the considerate type who disregards my unpunctuality with a contagious smile.

After exchanging pleasantries, Ava and I start toward the mass of suits milling inside Zinc at Federation Square. Picking up the requisite champagne from the gauntlet of waiting staff, we join the sea of University students and business representatives and prepare to enter the domain of the schmoozers.

Sure enough, a mere 2 minutes into our private conversation, a zealot of the schmoozers assimilates himself into our midst with German efficiency and joins our dialogue. My analytical and disparaging mind awakens from its university-induced slumber to commence absorption of its favourite stimulus: people. He’s pretty good, well timed laughter and facial expressions, a casual yet assertive mannerism and textbook use of a couple of hand gestures. Perhaps I’d be wise to learn to schmooze like that, but then again, that’d just make me like all the other black-suit-attired socio-manic penguins.

We manage to slip away eventually, I locating a few mates, and Ava finding a clique of familiar faces, which to my surprise includes one constituent of a famed business dynasty. If the adage “it’s about who you know” has truth to it, Ava will ascend to her desired echelon very quickly indeed.

Whilst chatting to my friends, the eyes were darting around the room (no, not for that reason, although at times it cannot be helped), trying to observe as much human dynamic as possible, a kind of ‘interpersonal espionage’ if you will. What a beautiful scene it was to my eyes: almost as if the representatives from the recruiting firms were powerful magnets, each surrounded by a collection of metallic, career-oriented university students, some steadily rotating to other magnets, and the slightly rusty ones wandering absently. I feel peculiar yet glad being able to ignore the imperative to gravitate to the schmoozing; perhaps I’m just made of aluminium, which would explain a great deal. Besides, I’m much more contented to sit back, observe, and learn from the intriguing behaviour of our strange species.

*

At the end of the function, I had a laugh with Ava over her account that another university student had given her his ‘business card’ (though he didn’t have a business) because he obviously thought she was a representative from a recruiting firm (which may or may not have something to do with the fact she often dresses more like someone on a $70k salary than a student). But you can infer from this just how lucrative schmoozing has become, and its obvious society has lost its head when supposedly intelligent people make such hilarious blunders and those who aren’t in business start handing out business cards. Go figure.

Part 2: The Analysis

The story cuts short there, the omitted sequence being an enjoyable lunch interposed with more of said schmoozing. No use in me recounting more examples of schmoozing, I’m sure the picture is fairly lucid.

From the outset, I’d never really given much thought to the dynamics of schmoozing, also dubbed ‘social prostitution.’ Not until today have I ever seen so many people try so hard to ‘suck up’ for lack of a more eloquent term.

There was once a time where skills, expertise, and integrity were the tools needed to get the job. These days, complements to moral decay and society’s ever more bent perspectives, you still need the first two, but forget integrity and scruples – you can safely trade those in for a compulsive socio-maniac mask and that toy monkey you’ve always wanted. That’s right, no longer is honesty the best policy, its all about the maximum suction of the schmooze.

As behavioural concepts have taken over as the big beef in human resources, the focus of recruiters has become the so called ‘people people,’ i.e. those who know how to interact better than the average person and work well in teams. So of course, supply mobilizes to meet the changed conditions of demand. Most have learned (with varying success) how to put on the act of being ‘people champions’ or as I like to call them, ‘High Templars of the Schmoozers’ who convincingly seem able to:

1. Smile constantly to the extent it would appear to hurt
2. Regurgitate an endless stream of one liners that incite laughter or flatter
3. Butter people up outrageously whilst cleverly obfuscating it
4. Shamelessly kiss the shoes of anyone for self-advancement
5. Initiate conversation and get along with everyone
6. Convey an image of extreme affability and approachability

The reality is that very, very few people truly have an amazing gift with people, (me not being one of them). We all have varying degrees of extroversion and most people augment this by schmoozing in order to achieve a desired outcome (in this case, getting the job).

Which brings us to the burning question:

Are people really that stupid?

First on the chopping block are the people who recruit for companies. The vast majority of recruiters are (and I cannot emphasise this enough) absolute suckers for the schmooze. Drawing on personal experience; when I was in year 12 I went to two final ‘combo-views’ (read: assessed group activities and an individual interview) with the two largest accounting firms, Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers. At that stage of my life, I had a passion for accounting, having a strong grounding in the field, well matched skills and the requisite track record academically. Of course they were impressed by intelligence and skills, but when they saw the somewhat shy and socially composed person, I had the courtesy of two generic, impersonal rejection emails. Needless to say I later found out a couple of the girls whom I observed brazenly schmoozing got the jobs.

Pigeonholing, we can now assume that the recruiters in accounting and conceivably in general are dense. It is human nature to warm to someone who is nice to you, compliments you and makes you feel important. Most recruiters, because they are human, willingly allow themselves to be exploited on these grounds because their egos are being massaged. Further, the veracity of compliments is inconsequential to their effect. If I say to you “that’s a beautiful outfit!” even though I think it is hideous and you have the fashion sense of an Arts student, it doesn’t change anything. You’ll still feel good and warm toward me because I paid you a compliment. Most recruiters are unable to pick a genuine ‘people-person’ from a schmoozer and so end up giving positions to the latter.

The stupidity stems from the fact that this creates rife averse selection. Companies become full of schmoozers who maintain the façade to varying extents, but do not actually perform to the standards exhibited previously and what the employer has come to expect. Essentially most firms have a fair proportion of employees who’ve over-inflated their own job and people skills, creating a disparity between expected and actual performance, to the peril of company bottom lines.

From this conclusion, it also follows that the schmoozers themselves are inherently stupid. Having put on that masquerade once, the schmoozer is forced to maintain what they have portrayed for the duration of their time with the firm or face adverse consequences. Thus they cannot act their normal self. Putting on an act is hard work, and 35+ hours a week not being able to behave like your true self consumes you. For this reason we have employee disillusionment, vicious office back-stabbings, and this masquerade causes much of the work related stress, anxiety and depression that plagues us and casts a shadow over the lives of many.

Better to be yourself, integrity is the key. By resisting the urge to schmooze and plainly being who you are, yes – you do lower your chances of landing the job. However, when you do land one, you will take immeasurable comfort in the fact you got the job because they liked your true character and not the ‘schmoozed-up’ version.

So, in wrapping up, schmoozers are losers. Follow integrity and you needn’t worry about maintaining false face, you can just be your usual self, in comfort. As a direct result, you will save yourself from the enormous stresses borne from playing an act; resulting in not only a more enjoyable time on the job, but even something of an emancipation of self.

~ by X on August 13, 2005.