Job Interview Next Please

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Looking forward to the weekend? Come weekend!

Toronto Raptors, Pascal and Fred, lethal combination.

Pascal Siakam the phenomenal player currently wearing Toronto Raptors threads made me laugh some time back when he said it in Zulu: Woza Weekend. He probably picked it up when he attended a Basketball Without Borders in Johannesburg, before his career with the Raptors.

In other countries they say: Thank god it’s Friday. Only people who have jobs say that. Days of the week are the same when you’ve been going from office to office, shop to shop with a plastic folder, looking for a job.

We finally sit at a table and answer questions why we want the job. We want it so much we lie. We have to, the truth doesn’t get you a job, it doesn’t make you the richest man in the world either.  

Interviewer:  You will manage six people if you get this job.  How are your people skills?
You:  I’m a people person. I get along very well with them.

You just blew it.  They have heard that lie a hundred times. Just put your cards on the table and tell them that people can be very obnoxious and you hate the thought of being nice to them, because you are the manager.

Supply examples. Tell them you hate signing that big card for someone’s birthday. Tell them your birthday is private and confidential and how does the office event planner know it? Tell them you hate explaining your unusual name everyday you meet someone new in the cafeteria.

Tell them you hate trooping to the coffee shop downstairs to bond over dark roast and frappuccino; hate looking at cellphone photos of newly born kids and saying they are cute; hate wearing denim on Fridays and dread the Christmas office party.

Interviewer:  Congratulations.  The job is yours.  Your honesty will be a great asset to the organization.

By: Nonqaba waka Msimang.

 

 

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