Interview Nightmares

I never really thought about interviews much until I started holding them myself. I always thought it was pretty much the luck of the draw. If you had a good day, you got the job. If you didn't, that was it - back to the ads again. Then I started finding books and articles on interview technique. Stuff about sitting cross-legged, putting your elbows onto the manager's table, assuming command, being aggressively humorous. So, I tried a few and... didn't get the jobs.

It was only when I started interviewing people myself for vacant positions in the language school where I worked, that I realised that candidates can be remarkably different. Some were nervously intelligent, others intelligently nervous, a few like rabbits in the headlights and one or two, plain offensive.

Let's start with the CV. They're usually nicely presented nowadays and make everyone look like Stephen Hawkings' younger brother or sister. And all beginning with that excruciating personal comment box at the very top - the bullshit-box, as it is commonly called. I hate this - it's usually a string of daft whining adjectives which make candidates sound desperate, sad, workaholics, who really have not had a life at all.

Then there's the interview. I began to to list my own 'trigger' words, which instantly consign candidates to the rejection pile. Stuff like 'sales is my vocation'. 'Marketing is my passion'. 'I'll work 110% from day one.' I used to explain that 110% simply wasn't possible and that I didn't want that sort of dedication, because it was plain unhealthy. 'I'm a very pro-active' person. Grrrrr. I've never really understood what that means. Are you creative, active, or do you just run a round a lot, looking busy? 'I love working in a team.' Warning bells on that one. Sounds like you like others to do the thinking, while you carry the bags and hide in the background. 'I'm a born leader'. Well, why are you here for a lowly sales executive job? And finally, 'I know everything about the market.' It's at this point that I ask a question about the increase in Albanian sales or the potential of the Mongolian market and watch the panic set in.

And the best candidates? The ones who get the jobs? Well, a few years ago, after a whole day interviewing a dreadful set of people, my colleague and I had one last person to go. She came in, slumped down in the chair, told us she had had a pig of a day and that she could murder a large gin and tonic. We perked up at this. Suddenly a genuinely honest person. No pretensions. We settled on coffee. She then followed me out of the room and helped make it. Now I'm not saying that this is what got her the job, but it certainly helped.

I know it's hard to be 'natural' in such a high stress situation, but you just have to try. You only have about 30 minutes maximum to impress in all ways and it really doesn't matter how fantastic you sound on paper or how many massive sales accounts you say you've monitored in the past.

It's that one small factor which always tilts it. Will you fit in?

Will Jackie on Reception get on with you? Will Accounts be able to work with you? Will you make everyone a cup of tea or coffee without being asked? Will you be the first to stand the drinks at the 'The Sun' at the end of a god-awful Wednesday?