I Know You, And You Know Me
So aaaaaaaanyway… I went for this job interview on Wednesday. It was my first one in years and I wanted to make a good impression. I arrived 5 minutes early and the receptionist put me in a room with a coffee. Eye contact, black no sugar, don’t check her out. Nice, though. Kinda has that whole sexy librarian thing working. OK - wrong. Don’t check her out. Everything’s going well.
I take a seat facing the door and I start reading the paper I bought on the way. I read any old paper, but today I took The Independent because it’s a highbrow middle of the road publication and the perfect interview day newspaper.
Finish this phrase:
“The Independent?!?! What are you, some kind of a ….. ???”
See? You can’t. Always thinking, me.
The person doing the interviewing was an external recruiter, which means that they don’t work for the company who is doing the hiring, and they won’t be your boss. This can be a good thing, apart from when the interview starts like this:
Interviewer (confidently and concerned): “Cliff, how are you?”
Me (I put down newspaper and stand up): “Great thanks. Nice to meet you.”
We shake hands.
Interviewer: “We’ve met before actually.”
I can’t remember ever having seen this guy before in my life. I stare at his features. No dice.
Me: “Really?”
Interviewer: “Yeeeees. It was a while ago. When was it now?”
Me (shaking my head): “Um.”
He continue to give me prompts, getting more and more specific, but the penny doesn’t drop. I wonder if I should just say “Oh I remember now!” so we can move on and get started. But then I think he would probably know I was making it up, seeing as I am the world’s worst lier.* And all the time I am thinking this, he is reeling off more details.
He finally pins down the exact day and event when he tells me who was with me when we met and still I can’t place him.
There is a pause.
I have two choices. I can either say “Ooooh…. Was that you?” and make him feel totally unmemorable, or I can look like a doofus and say “Nope. Sorry, I don’t remember a fucking thing.”
I chose the latter. I tarted it up a little of course, but that’s what I went for.
And I’ve blown it. The interview went ok, but my first impression smelt of wee.
Come to think of it, as I write this now, the fucker probably put my name in his Outlook calender which he updates meticulously, because that’s what he does. That’s his line - people and meetings. What I do are projects and events. I’m a creative person, in editorial and production. I have meetings, but my job is the outcome of those meetings, not the meetings themselves. And the people in my meetings?
Of course, that’s all hindsight now, because the first impression the interviewer got was me being a skwinting buffoon who couldn’t remember what Mr Outlook meeting man could look up by hitting Control F.
*Actually, I’m not the world’s worst lier, but then you saw right through that, didn’t you?