Sunday, April 15, 2007

the group interview

there is nothing like the anxiety created by 10-12 humans firing questions at you in rapid succession. my group interview resembled a cluedo cast of characters; "professor plum" complete with cheesy jokes and bad puns; "miss scarlett", young, cute and vibrant before burnout increases her bum size and demotivates her from make up and dry cleaned suits every day; the maternal "mrs peacock", smiling reassuringly while asking easy questions. thankfully there were no candlesticks, or even a rope to hang myself with.

the feng shui was "drill & grill"; tables were configured in a "U" shape and i foolishly joked/asked where the chair in the centre was. one of the ID badge wearing head honchos from corporate office obliged and created a hotseat. the predictable result of my chronic problem of opening my mouth and not locating the "for god's sake, shut up!" valve.

interviewer # 7: "why do you want to come and work with us rather than go back to your old company?"
me: [deer in headlights, shit, the truth? or the interview response?] "my former place of employ was the "wal-mart of mental health", and i am ready for something smaller where i can be more focused on a higher level of quality client care" (titter, titter). they asked what their agency would be, we debated this like old friends for a while and surmised target.

interviewer # 3: "where do you see yourself in 5 years?"
me: "lying on a beach in the bahamas".

interviewer # 5: "what are your weaknesses?"
me: "books and chocolate".

interviewer # 7: "how do you handle conflict?"
me: "i had a co-worker who must have been breast fed until he was 10, and was really perfecting the art of learned helplessness. after addressing it with him and seeing no changes i spoke with my supervisor".

smartass points: 8/10
foreign appeal & intellectual sounding accent: 9/10 (the director was a transplanted scot)
probability of securing this job: hmmmm?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Disa, it could of been worse (really).

You could of advised them that your weaknesses are along the lines of books and chocolates.

Oh, hang on a minute ...

saltandsaffron said...

Interviewer No#1: Why are you wearing in-formals?
Interviewer No#2: Tell me about your childhood.
Interviewer No#3: Do you like my book shelf?
Interviewer No#4: You look rather young, any specific reasons?

(Trust me it could've been worse.)

saltandsaffron said...

Interviewer No#1: You look rather young, any specific reasons?
Interviewer No#2: Tell me what kind of games did you play in childhood.
Interviewer No#3: What do you think of my book-shelf?
Interviewer No#4: (Actually tried to feel me up while showing me the door)

So my friend, it could've been worse. Trust me.

Anonymous said...

ah, group interviews....much like speaking in front of the class without paper airplanes or a dunce cap...there was no dunce cap, right?