Going back to last week, you might remember that our narrative revolved around a recent graduate who was in the process of applying for a graduate scheme position.
You will be happy to know that rather than shouting out ‘To Hell With It!!!’ he has decided to be mature about it, stand up to the challenge and go through a series of misfortunate events which I can effectively use as today’s rants.
And to make it ever so personal, I shall once more switch to Second Person.
So you wake up after a long day of doing absolutely nothing; and, I mean, why would you?
You have gone through the application process AND the telephone interview. All you’ve got left is an assessment centre, a group project, a presentation, an interview with the recruitment director, an interview with a senior member of HR and a case study to hand in.
Piece of cake; a banana- toffee cheesecake, actually.
You decide, however, that you shan’t indulge in any sort of sugary goodness before attending the assessment centre as you want to look professional and poised rather than sugary- cute and garden- gnome- friendly.
You decide to take a brisk one- hour walk to the place because you are an unemployed graduate and you can, therefore, afford to be a cheapo.
Walking at a steady pace, you manage to get to the place on time, with NO thanks to the MAPS app on your IPhone which has proved to be as ineffective as Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign.
Facing you is an old and rather grey building which is not what you might call the most welcoming place in the world. Nevertheless, you walk in, equipped with a smile and a big bag (recyclable, of course) of positive thoughts.
Having already read up on what to expect in an assessment centre, you walk around with an air of omnipotence and manage to emerge out of that unforgiving melee of talents (quite poetic, no?) severely scarred but victorious.
(Note to reader: the contents of the various aptitude tests utilised by employers in assessment centre will not be discussed as their nature is quite repetitive, monotonous and, frankly quite boring for me to rant about)
Tackling the group project next, you manage to show everyone that you can be both a brilliant team player and a benevolent and forgiving leader.
You are then asked to do a ‘short’ presentation on a topic of your choice. Naturally, you choose to talk about the marvelous blog that you have been maintaining lately and how writing daily articles has substantially increased your general knowledge, commercial awareness, overall intelligence, ability to communicate your ideas and efficiently research a topic in limited time and how it has greatly contributed to your general awesomeness and employability.
Both the recruiting director and the HR executive nod approvingly and advise you that you can demonstrate all of those qualities in the interviews to follow.
This, of course, you duly do by discussing the effect that the recruitment machines and software has had on the HR sector and the recruitment process in general and go through the fiscal cliff, or slope, whilst somehow managing to bring up Egypt’s political turmoil caused by Mr. Morsi’s decree granting him sweeping powers over the state and the judiciary.
Being quite certain that the interviews have gone quite well and as planned, you finally tackle the case study which, rather conveniently, is on the effect that the fiscal cliff will have on the world economy. ‘Cliché’, you say to yourself and deal with that in a swift and rather efficient manner.
So that was all, was it? It most certainly was not as arduous as it initially sounded; after all, it did feel like the interviews were a mere formality and that the interviewers had already made up their mind and decided to take you on.
You get back home and decide to reward yourself by doing absolutely NOTHING for the next few days. You feel quite happy with what you have achieved and are quite certain that you have managed to impress everyone and, thus, to secure the position.
It’s Friday and it’s quite sunny outside. Waking up and gazing through the window, you suddenly realise that they must have emailed you by now.
With a huge grin on your face and a mug of coffee in your arm, you go into your email and see that they have indeed replied back to you.
You open the email and…:
‘Dear Z
Thank you for your application with Company X.
We were very delighted to meet you and think that you are a very able, ambitious and multi- faceted young person with a wide array of skills.
(You can see where this is going, right..?)
Unfortunately, we have had many applicants this year and it has so happened that some were more experienced than you and, thus, more suitable for the position.
I do hope that the above news will not be very disheartening for you and hope that you will apply to Company X again next year.
I wish you the best of luck in all of your future endeavours.
Kind regards
Professor X.’
It is quite painful and a tear does go down your cheek; but complaining and weeping never helped anyone, remember?
You close your eyes for a moment, smile to yourself, open a new tab on your browser, push a new 'Apply Now!’ button and shout out
To Hell With It!
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