Better Luck Next Time

I want to change my job. I’m sure it’s the first time that you’ve heard this from me, since I only mentioned this briefly before and not in 3 or 4 posts already.

Anyway, I can say that I’m pretty experience on job interviews by now. I’ve been looking for a job for about a year and I’ve been called several times. And since I’m still in the exact same place, I can also say that I’ve been rejected numerous times.

Here are some tips on how to go on the same road as I did:

• Assume that you know where your interview is and don’t bother to look at the address. Then arrive there just in time to realize that there are actually two buildings from the same company on the same area and you are in the incorrect one.
• Wear really high heels when you know that you have to walk a while to get to the interview. Then go limping all the way to the meeting room and take your shoes off under the desk.
• Repeat several times the exact same thing because you couldn’t remember anything else to say. Just keep on repeating.
• When questioned on how long it would take to speak properly a language you haven’t spoken in 10 years, instead of lying and say that it will be fast since you used to be fluent, tell the truth and say it will take you months of intensive training.
• State in the interview that as a matter of fact you want to be the boss.
• When asked if you ever managed P&L, answer “no” without any further explanation.
• Forget how to use English.

I know that these things are not that bad. When I was in the recruiter role, I actually had stranger people who did amazing things. But my behavior on these interviews must actually explain why I was still in this obnoxious and tedious work.

But I’m not all that bad. I’ve had two interviews where the recruiter was actually worse that I was.

On one I had a French recruiter (I don’t speak French, even though I understand), who was in an English department based in Portugal. Even though the interview was supposed to be in English, she barely spoke the language, so in the same sentence she would have the beginning in English, then swapping to Portuguese and ending in her mother language French. Every time I needed to answer one question, I had to think in which language I should answer. Just to be funny I should have answered back in German and then say “Do you like it?! Do you like it?! No?! So chose a language woman! And stick with it!”

The other one, the recruiter didn’t even know the position that I had applied to, and started off by stating the wrong one. I corrected her. Then realized that I had just sealed my faith on that company. I shouldn’t have corrected her.

She never confessed that she had been wrong, but the whole interview was filled with questions for a position that I was applying. Strange questions, by the way. Never once was my CV discussed. I was the one who tried to direct the conversation there. She was like “If you were a unicorn what you would do first?”, in a strange English that I could barely understand. There was a question about an airplane and a garage that I didn’t understand. Why would you keep an airplane on a garage?! I asked if she meant Hangar. Ops, I corrected her again.

Then she actually asked if I knew how to work with shift plans. Once again I directed her to my CV where it specifically says that for about 2 years I managed a department that worked in strange shifts, as it was a contact center. Apparently it wasn’t what she was looking for. She wanted to know if I knew how to organize a shift plan not if I worked with one…….I had to explain that when we manage a department, it really is part of our tasks to do that. So yes, I could read a shift plan, and by all means, I could organize one!

Another question was what I would do if a person from my team was constantly late. My answer was that I’d speak with that person to understand what was happening. Her doubt was if I would be doing that in front of the whole team or in private. Well, my darling, what I normally do is to pull out the belt from my pants, ask the late one to drop the pants, and then spank him in front of everyone. That’s it. Please hire me!

I was quite relieved when I was not selected for that one. I was extremely worried for the company if that is the way that they conduct interviews.

Wish me luck for the next ones……I think I seriously need it!