Thankyou dear reader for boosting my income yesterday. I hope that your fingers are not too sore from all that effort. I see that the contents of the ads hasn't altered much today, i was hoping that things would get a bit spicier after yesterday's content, perhaps there is a lag while the web bots get their acts together.
I don't suppose that I will ever again have to go through the pantomime of a job interview. At least i hope that is the case. Interviews are by and large a game, where the interviewers know the rules while the interviewee does not. Generally speaking the game goes a bit like this. A job vacancy arises (well it used to happen!) and even though there may be someone in the establishment that is perfectly suited for that post, the job has to be advertised nationally. Applications then come flooding in and someone is paid to go through them with a critical eye, binning all those written in crayon or pencil, those who have forgotten to put their name on the paper, and those who have crumpled the forms. This produces a long list that is then passed on to someone else whose job it is to actually read the forms. At this point bad spellers and those with dodgy names and addresses get binned along with anyone who appears on list 99 or whatever lists there may be that we don't even know about. This produces a short list which has to be juggled to ensure a proper gender balance regardless of the suitability of candidates. This may involve a visit to the bin to retrieve borderline applications.
Once the short list is approved the candidates are invited to attend interview and claim all the expenses for so doing, while a panel of interviewees is also chosen.
On the day of the interviews, everyone dresses up in their best suits and wash shave and comb their hair. Fingernails are pruned and shoes polished, and a room selected for the ritual humiliation that is yet to come. A candidate's chair is selected. just marginally lower than everyone else's and the game begins.
There was a time when the interviewees could ask any question they liked, and the jumped up little men/women eager to impress would generate the most obscure and incomprehensible questions in order to make the wretched victim squirm. The best I ever had thrown at me was " Does Ontogeny recapitulate phylogeny?" Apparently it does but at the time i had no idea what any of the words meant.
That system was crazy enough but now, apparently each candidate must be asked exactly the same questions, which although pretty fair takes away most of the fun from the game.
The whole process can go on all day if the short list isn't short enough, and finally the candidates are lined up in a different room with a water dispenser. There they can talk if they want or just stare at the posters on the walls, wondering what time the next train is. A secretary pops in from time to time to make sure that no-one has died or run away, and at last the final session completed, the successful candidate is called back in. It is usually the person who was already in the establishment, and of course they accept graciously. Now and then the candidates are sent away without a decision being made, and the agony is extended over a few more days. Or a candidate is offered the job and they decline on the basis that they didn't like the location. This is a great move as it puts the shoe on the other foot, throwing the panel into a panic. They have now to decide whether to offer it to someone who they have already rejected, and who knows it, or to readvertise and start a new game with all the expense that it entails.
I suppose that it works but surely there has to be a better way.
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