I'm lucky Tinker likes me because if I had to go out and interview for a new job I think I'd have to top myself on the way there. You cannot imagine how much I despise job interviews. It might have something to do with my hatred of HR people in general or maybe it is my aversion to team sports and musical instruments? Either way I make for a lousy job applicant. I always have.
Back when I was at university and I joined the manic rush for a summer clerkship at a prestigious corporate law firm, I sold my soul for a day and went to an interview at the firm made famous in Sydney for its unscrupulous document shredding.
At the interview high up in the Wintergarden overlooking our beautiful city sat me, about 20 gallons of lipgloss (what was I thinking?) some HR twit and one of the partners from the M&A team. The partner seemed to like me, we made some lame small talk about how his sons went to Riverview and how I kicked their school's pansy ass in a debating comp in tenth grade and I think I may have spun a story about playing the violin or was it the cello? It had strings anyway.
He seemed to be coming to the end of his questions when he flicked through my application again and asked "so Carolyn you said here that our firm is progressive. What exactly did you mean by that?"
I don't think I even stopped to take a breath. I wish I had. My instant reply?
"Progressive? Oh that's just an HR catchphrase I threw in there."
The coiffed cow from HR dropped her clicky pen. It rolled across the jarrah table towards the partner. It may have hit one of his pieces of paper, I'm not sure. I was too busy swallowing my own tongue and praying for terrorists to fly a plane into the building. "I'm sorry?" he asked. But it was too late for a second chance then. I knew I'd blown it so I gulped, smiled and said "that's right. It's just an HR catchphrase I used to bulk up my application. I'm not sure I can really think of anything that makes this firm progressive to me."
And with that, I was ushered out, never to return.
I have pages and pages of similar tales but the bottom line is that I don't interview well at all. It's just not something that works well for me, I'm brutally blunt and not at all good when it comes to talking myself up. I hate it so much that I become a defiant mouthy little rat. So, just another reason why I love love love being a housewife. Please house, don't ever divorce me? No more interviews!
So tell me, do you have any shocking interview blunders?
