Sunday 16 March 2014

My most unusual job interview


Usually I have always had women examiners at my job interviews. And usually they all ask you the same. So, after a really long time I had this interview where the examiner was a man. But why do I say unusual? Because it lasted exactly THREE hours!
We sat at this really big table: he at one corner, me at the other. 'Are you nervous?' 'No.' I actually felt relaxed and comfortable. He looked at my papers and said: 'That's not you in the picture.' I smiled: 'Of course I am.' 'Don't resent me, but you look much prettier in person. You look so serious in the picture.' 'Well, you should look serious at this formal matters', I replied.
'Let me tell you, that this conversation is going to last about 2 hours. Maybe less, that depends on you.' 'Ok.'
He read: 'I currently live in Ljubljana. What does this currently mean? Are you going somewhere?' 'No, this just means, that I live in Ljubljana at the moment.' 'Are you married or single?' 'Single.' 'Do you have any children?' 'No, I don't.' A moment of silence, then he raised his voice a bit: 'You are a lawyer, you should know that I'm not allowed to ask you that?!' 'I know that, but in reality people ask you that.'
'What was the biggest risk in your life? How do you behave if you don't like your boss? How would people, who don't like you, describe you? What would you, regarding to your past job, change about yourself in your new job? Tell me a joke.'
I felt like I was at the psychiatrist, or at least at the psychologist.
'Name the last three books you read, with their authors.' That was easy. 'Emotional intelligence by Daniel Goleman. The sense of an ending by Julian Barnes, which also won the Booker Prize. And I always keep re-reading The little prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.'
'Let's say, that you personally have to sell some product. What do you need to sell it?' 'Well, first I need an offer.' 'No.' 'Marketing?' 'No.' 'Oh, of course, I need a consent, I mean a contract.' 'No. This is so simple, how come you don't know it? You need the knowledge about this product.' Well, ok.
'Your favourite memories?' 'My childhood, my college time and my holidays in Germany.' 'Why your college time?' 'Because everything was so carefree back then.' 'Name 5 members of Parliament and their political parties.' I named them but added: ' But I don't know which parties they belong to, since I'm really not interested in slovenian politics.' 'Me neither', he said. So I guess this was one of those 'tricky' questions.
'Tell me how you spent your day today, in English and German. And then: what are your plans for this weekend, in Croatian and/or Serbian.'
The last question was: 'Who would you invite to a dinner?'
Then he gave me about 20 sheets of paper, with different matters, which I had to organize on my schedule from 5 to 7 p.m. that day. 'I give you exactly one hour for this test, but I hope you'll finish it sooner. Any questions?'
'No.'
As I was leaving, he asked me: 'How was it?' I said: 'Well, it's been a while, since I have written tests like that.'
I arrived at 4.50 pm. I left at 8.05 pm.


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