Job 10: When you have no recollection of the company that calls you up asking you to come to interview or of having even applied for the job

Job 10: When you have no recollection of the company that calls you up asking you to come to interview or of having even applied for the job in the first instance

Process: Screening -> Phone Interview-> Group Interview -> Individual Interview -> Offer

The Short:
When this company called me up congratulating me on the fact that I had made it through to the phone interview for their international trainee intake, there was a very handsome voice on the line, full of probing vitality and hope, and a little bell dingling away in my right ear. That's right, I had little memory of who this company was, what they did, or why I would have even sent off an application. Now you're all doing it. That grimace. Ah. Ah &ah. These mild looks of disapproval are palpable and pulverising. Just give ma a chance here to explain. I know I know, I have the Job Seekers Almanac third edition 1989 as well, in which chapter 3 lays out the framework for cataloguing all jobs that you apply for so that you will not be in this situation. Well, guess what? I aced the phone interview, and I didn't catalogue. That said, Third Edition 1989, in due respect, from now on, I will catalogue. You win. You chronic cataloguers all fucking win this one.

So I stayed with the interview although I was on the par 3 fifth hole at Camberwell Golf Course enjoying the midday sun, and was awarded with promotion to the group interview for Company M, a Norwegian company that was pioneering SaaS products, and is a regular case study on Harvard and Stanford MBA programs, or so I have been led to believe.

The Interview:
This interview came during my grueling 8 companies, 8 different interview week, and was held at the Intercontinental Hotel by the Rialto. I loved the way company M presented, and although I never seriously considered taking a job, I was always going to do my best to receive an offer and to learn about what made this company grow from a 15,000 USD dollar start-up to one stretching 47 countries with 900 employees and 120 million USD of revenues in 2009.

So... The Group Interview & Highlights
->5 interviewers, all young and groovy and 13 interviewees, just as young and groovy
1) Company Introduction (1 hour lecture)
2) Individual Introduction -> talk about the most difficult thing you have done (non study related) The highlight was the burly 6 foot 4 rugby type who swore an his mother's orchids that the most difficult challenge he had ever had was climbing the Sydney harbour bridge... even Thor was quaking in his boots as the word 'furphie' dropped from the back of our lexicon onto a plate the size of a 20 cent coin. Even better was the guy who talked about his most challenging life achievement, booking a flight for his 2 week trip to Japan, and the greatest of them all... the girl who not only travelled to Poland but also managed to actually rent accommodation and live there for two years, never mentioning a word of anything else, leaving us with the vision of Polish Real Estate agents, ghoulish apparitions of fear and trepidations.

[Edit Note: Hello Kitty has been asked by a reader for his individual introduction at this particular juncture in proceedings. If you guys fill out my blog polls, I'll present the answer later on in the blog.]

3) Talking Task - Sell a hobby in 5 minutes to the panel. I was preceeded by a girl selling water polo, a guy selling golf, a guy selling model car building, a guy selling cycling, a girl selling learning foreign languages... and then my turn... I penned two and two together with all of the obscurity of adventure gardening, the highlight of this sport being when you kit up and go jumping neighborhood fences seeking offcuts of basil, parsley and thyme, all the while dodging k9 attacker drones. Adventure Gardening, subsidized by the Government, well, the water tank for your garden is if you know where to fill out the requisite paper work. Adventure Gardening, the perfect touches of basil and parsley on your home cooked pizza.