I was recently approached by a young reader to tender my thoughts on the tricky process of surviving a job interview. I could tell, from his tone, that he had been personally scarred by the experience and sought guidance, for both himself and others, in navigating this hazardous course in the future.

 

So this is for you Matt

 

Upon being invited to a job interview 

‘Work’ is a generally unpleasant experience, and is to be, as much as possible, avoided. Ideally one’s lavish lifestyle is financed by a steady stream of funds left in the wake of wealthy departed relatives. The sad reality for most of us, however, is that one is forced by circumstance, from time to time, to seek paid employment in order to avoid homelessness or a life of crime. One is thus compelled to ‘apply for a job’ and is subsequently faced with the daunting prospect of a ‘job interview’, an experience even more unpleasant than the job itself.

There was a time when such an interview would be conducted by an expert in the particular trade within which you might be attempting to pass yourself off as possessing vague competence.

Not any longer.

 

Assuming that you are seeking employment within a company comprising more than six or seven employees the entire odious procedure will be orchestrated by the ‘Human Resources’ Department. The HR Department is, invariably, the most powerful division of the company and serves absolutely no purpose other than to render life both hideously demeaning and procedurally unfathonable for all other employees. If you were not already aware that you were about to be handled like a tradable commodity then the name alone should dispel any further doubts. You are a piece of meat.

Your first point of contact on this descent into hell will be with someone who goes by the name of ‘Talent Acquisition Officer’. The TAO is a recent school leaver with no qualification other than a natural talent for human cruelty and the benefit of having friends in high places. This repugnant individual will require, of you, several things before the actual invitation to interview can be issued. This may include (but not be limited to) the following:-

1. The Curriculum Vitae. Otherwise known as the CV or resume this is a weighty document containing gross exaggerations and, more commonly, outright lies describing what makes you absolutely indispensable to the organisation to which you have just come begging. It should give the impression of vast experience by it’s weight alone and you will know that you have got this right when your interviewer slams it down on the desk in front of you, looks you in the eye and pronounces, “Impressive CV.” The actual contents are unimportant. It is (allegedly) about you and is assumed to be a mind-numbingly boring read. No-one, therefore, will read it.
2. Online Psychometric Testing. This is a long series of meaningless questions and puzzles designed to force you into self-contradiction. The trick here then, is to focus on consistency. It doesn’t matter if you feel that your answers may be revealing you as a borderline psychopath (it may be to your advantage, in fact) just as long as you do not swerve from this course. The true purpose of the test is to identify liars. More specifically it is there to separate the good liars from the bad liars. I think you know which one you want to be.
3. Online, On-demand (one-way) Video Interview. This is where the humiliation really begins. You will be required to sit, like an idiot, in front of a screen and record your hopes and aspirations in response to pre-prepared (carefully pre-prepared) questions and then submit the embarrassing results online. We are all aware of the dangers of recording personal and possibly revealing photographs or videos of ourselves and then tossing them in the open sewer that is the internet. Think about it. You can NEVER erase this stuff. Unless you are applying for a position as a newsreader this recording has absolutely no bearing on your employment potential. It is there entirely for the amusement of the HR department, who will sit, as a group during friday afternoon drinks, to watch the week’s submissions. And roar with laughter.
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If you are deemed as worthy, after this process, of further consideration then an email inviting you to an interview by actual human beings (or a close approximation thereof) will be received. Immediately dismiss any ideas that you might have had of a pleasant fire-side chat. Think more along the lines of Guantánamo Bay. The interview team, by this time, will have poked into your past and thoroughly scrutinised every word that you have ever written on social media. They likely have enough dirt on you to put you away for years. Your psychometric testing has confirmed you to be mentally unstable. During the next hour or so they will reduce you to a shaking wreck. They already own you.

There will be no questions about your technical skills. But there will be a lengthy and uncomfortable probing into the details of childhood friendships and of your reaction on the day that you accidently saw your mother naked. Eventually you will be reduced to tears. The timing of this mental collapse is important. If you are seeking employment in the area of social work it is perfectly acceptable to start sobbing within the first fifteen minutes or so. If you are applying for a position as an international airline pilot, on the other hand, it may be wise to exhibit a little stoicism and hold out a bit longer.

Part of the process may include a group session during which a dozen or so of you (there are about three hundred people vying for one poorly paid position) will be put together to demonstrate your abilities in a ‘team building exercise’. If you are in the habit of viewing ‘reality’ television shows then you will already know what this is all about. It is a gladiatorial contest during which you will be expected to form flimsy allegiances with those that you will later betray and slaughter. It is important to smile during this process whilst being simultaneously as cold-heartedly malicious as possible. You are dealing with the HR Department. This is the sort of behaviour they respect.
You may want to bear in mind, at the same time, that the innocent widowed mother of two that you have just stabbed in the back and rendered emotionally unemployable will be by your side the following week at your next interview.

For in the end you won’t get the job. It will transpire that the second cousin of a senior vice-president who has just been released from jail following conviction for child molestation has been adjudged as being better qualified.

You will be left with the choice of either killing yourself or applying for another job. It will be a difficult decision.

 

So let me reiterate. Do not attend job interviews unless absolutely necessary. But if your financial circumstances leave you with no other choice then do not shy away from the realities. You are engaged in the most basic of transactions. There are people that have something that you want (money) and the onus is on you to convince them that you have something that they want in return. This is what is referred to as ‘selling yourself’. It is called prostitution.

In this case it is prostitution with a peculiar S & M flavour (minus the nudity and actual physical violence) and if this is your thing then I wish you all the very best. Personally, however, I am far too protective of my dignity to engage voluntarily in such unsavoury activities.

Which may explain my consistent record of long-term unemployment.

Shinrin Yoku

We walked together, my guide and I, for four and a half hours in a silence enforced by our lack of shared language. Occasionally we exchanged smiles as a way of acknowledging our brief fellowship but the walk was all uphill and he set a demanding pace such that conversation would have been difficult even were it possible. Perhaps, in retrospect, the exertion, the jet-lag and the decreasing oxygen levels might account, in part, for the overwhelming euphoria that was to follow.

The path under our feet was a crackling bed of red and orange leaves and we were encased in a chamber of rich greenery but I did not become fully aware of the colour of everything until we emerged out into the blue at the top. And then it was as though I was seeing colour for the first time.

It was not only the colour, though. The air was suddenly full of impossibly sweet aromas and when a bird’s feather fell on my shoulder from above I felt it as clearly as had it been a brick. I sensed the heartbeat of the universe, but it is not fully possible to put the experience into words. The planet stretched out below us in all directions and a thousand miles of sky likewise above. Yet I could see clearly beyond it all. I knew, at that moment, that my silent companion and I were the only two humans in existence, and that we were being permitted a brief glimpse into the universal enigma.

It was somewhere within that instant that I saw God.

I speak of instants when, in truth, I have no idea of how long I had stood there. And then my guide pointed to his watch before pointing back down the hill. He reached into his backpack and handed me a beer. I remember what an incongruous act that seemed to be, under the circumstances, and I carefully examined the labeling half expecting to find secret code revealing further insights into the universe. But it was just a beer. I drank it in one swallow.

I could not tell whether or not he was sharing any of the emotion that had mysteriously engulfed me. The expression of contented well being with which he had begun the day would remain with him until the end of it. I suppose that I was disappointed, to a degree, that as we made our way back down the track the impact of the experience was not as clearly visible in his demeanor as it must have been in mine.

I suppose he had seen God four or five times that week.

The light was beginning to fade by the time we reached the bottom. When we shook hands I realised that it was the first time we had actually touched and I could confirm that he was, indeed, human. He gave me one final smile and a nod that I took to be an acknowledgement of our shared experience. I suppose then that he caught the train back to his home and to his wife and children and would see no reason to think further on the matter.

Later a light rain was beginning to fall as I walked alone through the crowded Tokyo streets to my hotel and I felt the magic begin to wash away from me. That night, as I stood beneath the shower it was as though I was rinsing the remains of the truth from my body before dressing again in my disguise and returning to the world.

 

I’m not sure why this delicate subject matter keeps creeping into my thoughts. Perhaps I am on some sort of guilt trip from a former life….

 

 

I can hold a smile
For a while
And pretend
It’s how I feel
But you and I
Cannot deny
The pretence is not real
We lie to make it meaningful
We lie, we cheat, we steal
We lie about emotions
Emotions we don’t feel
We lie just for the hell of it
We lie about the crime
But darling let’s not dwell on it
Let’s lie here one more time.

 

 

 

 

Drowning in a sea
Of passion
You and me
Pretending, in a fashion, not to see
Reality
My breath overcome
With rolling waves of lust
And betrayed trust
Knowing that we must
Touch
Suddenly
Before the magic dies
And our lies
Become the truth
That our eyes
Fail to disguise
And the ocean
Uncaring of our sins
Opens it’s heart
And consumes us.