Tell Me About A Time

I just got off the phone with one of my friends who wanted to share one of her crazy interview stories. Apparently the young woman came in dressed like she was going to a cabaret. My friend tried to comment on it subtly, hoping for an explanation, but the young woman misinterpreted it as my friend admiring her wardrobe. "Oh yeah, I'm on vacay!" That was strike one. Strikes two was her trying to negotiate the salary at the beginning of the first of three interviews. Strike three was responding to a question about how to motivate someone toward a different goal with, "Who am I to change someone's mind?" The entire job, by the way, is to motivate and change people's mind.

It reminded me of some of my favorite interviews:

There was the time that I called a woman who thought I was a collection agency pretending to be an interviewer. She asked me to prove that I was not a collection agency. That's still not as bad as playing twenty questions with the jealous boyfriend who thought I was a guy trying to talk to his girl. I always felt bad when I called someone whose phone was disconnected. I always wondered if I had just called them a day earlier would their phone have been "accepting incoming calls at this time." Worst of all is being asked to call back later because the person is busy.

It's when you finally get through to someone that the magic happens. "Tell me about a time when you failed at a task." If you learn nothing else from reading my blog, please remember that "rehab" is never the right answer to ANY question in a job interview. I appreciate you trying to be up front, but some things you should just let come out naturally. Speaking of honesty, a lot of people get fired for stealing from work apparently. If this were Family Feud I'd say that it would be the top answer to "Why did you leave your last job?"

Just to be fair, I've botched an interview before. I still kick myself for it. The first interviews went great. I was in the last one with two guys and I just bombed the damned thing. The last question was the icing on the cake: Why should we hire you? "Because I want, but don't need this job." I don't know why I said it. As the words came out of my mouth, the voice in my head was screaming "WHAT!?" I tried to sweeten it up and make it sound like I was passionate about it enough to turn down something else, but there was no freshening that mess up. The interviewers just stared at me blankly.

The truth is that I had that interview a few days before my heart surgery, and the day before another doctor called to tell me that there was a problem with my liver functions that could be due to cancer. My mind was on other things. I wanted to tell the interviewers that, but for some reason I didn't. I wonder if any of those other people had similar issues going on.