Mar 21, 2007

The Wrong Information

Based on my interview experience this morning, I offer another hhn list, this time on the Does and Don'ts of interviews (well my interview anyway):

1) DON'T freak out when you talk to the headhunter the night before the interview and she tells you that it is a completely different job from the one you have been preparing for.
2) DO go for a swim before the interview.
3) DON'T try a citizens arrest on the obvious sex offender in the lift down to the interview room, because he might just end up being on the interview panel.
4) DO smile sweetly when the PA who is taking you down in the lift introduces you to the sex offender/panellist as John. (This is so deeply removed from my actual name it is not true.)
5) DON'T be put off when the actual person who you would be working directly to leaves the interview room in her overcoat just as you arrive. (Turns out she had an emergency meeting with a diplomat, so I guess it was fair enough.)
6) DO try not to just focus on the only normal person on the interview panel, and try and engage with the sex offender and the other panellist aka Yoko Ono's mum.
7) DON'T make any jokes, not even one about them constantly looking at their watches because they are running late.
8) DO sip your cup of water delicately, rather than gulping it down like you drank a bottle of tequila last night.
9) DON'T try and catch Mrs Ono's eye, especially if you think one - or both of them - may be glass.
10) DO try not to be sarcastic when the sex offender says; "I suppose you charge for your work?" (I was a bit stuck on this one. The temptation to say "No. I do it for charity, and here's another bit of free advice. Shave off your moustache. It makes you look like a paedo." was mighty.
11) DON'T feel too pleased with yourself when the normal person on the panel says "That was a perfect answer", when you know he is just being nice because he knows that you have figured out that the other two people on the panel are nuts.
12) DO take some consolation in the fact that the next interview candidate looked like a grey haired version of that female singer from The B52s.

Needless to say, I have absolutely no idea how the interview went. Second guessing insanity and all that. But the normal guy was really nice, and does actually work in the field that I was being interviewed about, which kinda helped the whole discussion. One of the other distractions during the interview was that the headhunter had told me some very personal information about this guy, and I spent quite a lot of the interview thinking "Wow. He does that? But he seems so normal." Too much of the wrong information - again.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

well good luck hhn, what was the job, was it lift operator at Ann Summers?

hhn said...

A brief hhn list:

1) Make a comment on hhn if you are going to be funny/clever/interesting
2) Don't bother if you are not going to be funny/clever/interesting

It is as simple as that.

And who is the loser who has been pretending to be blokewho? How dare they try that on. blokewhoisveryupset is very upset.

Anonymous said...

2 must remembers for any blog

1) Only post a blog if you are going to be funny/clever/interesting
2) Don't bother if you are not going to be funny/clever/interesting

Anonymous said...

do try not to use double negatives

Anonymous said...

or double dulls