I actually don’t know how it is for every other person out there but one thing I know is interviews are quite funny to me. They’ve always been. I won’t be giving you age long stories (chuckles). If you are a young graduate who just got into the labour market; you’d find out how crazy it is.
I had graduated in 2018; though due to bureaucracy, I recieved my certificate in February 2019. Since then till now, I’ve had my fair share of job interviews; and they always seemed funny to me. There was one where I was being interviewed for the role of a news caster; they were two of us in the employer’s office. We were both asked to read a news that had been typed to her hearing. After the first guy had finished reading, he was referred to a room to meet some other person and when I was done with mine; she asked me to write my name and phone number with the receptionist, that she’d call me. I smiled cos I knew I had been politely rejected. There was even a school teacher interview where I was rejected cos some female students were beginning to ‘like’ me (smiles). But there was this one where I honestly thought the ‘couple’ sitting directly opposite me on the round table were the employers. I had no idea they were also job seekers.
So, I had applied for this job and got this interview. The interview, initially scheduled for Saturday was postponed to Monday. Well, I had no jitters; cos I have actually qualified for a job before, gone on to the negotiations table and on the day I was to commence work, I was rejected for God knows what.
So today, I was headed to the venue of the job interview; slightly thinking I am overdressed, when I saw this guy on suit. He looked awesome and I just thought he shouldn’t be a job seeker. Guess what? He was also part of the employers.
I had met this crowd on a queue I thought were for something else; not until I asked a guy and my fears were confirmed. Good Lord! To top it all; I saw men my uncle’s age if not my dad’s, for the same job. I also saw women who were older than most of the employers. I even mistook one of the female job applicants for my teacher in elementary school. At a point, I felt like I should step out to increase their chances of getting the job; because they might have more dependants than I. Later, a young lady came and requested everyone to put off their mobile phone. You needed to see how people obeyed; not a single person wasn’t bringing out their phone to switch it off. Even a Pastor won’t have had this sway. Initially, when she came; she actually wanted to disqualify some persons based on punctuality. You needed to see pleas coming from everywhere. At a point, one man reacted as if he was talking to his wife while trying to make her see reason with him for being late; while another was pleading like she was his daughter.
I remember one lady even being hesitant when asked to sit at a particular seat. There were some persons acting like they’ve been on the interview before; trying to make friends. Well then, a lady quite young (I won’t say petite) came once more and ordered total quiet. Everywhere was dead silent; it was really funny, how orders were obeyed by everyone including the man I told you was old enough to be my uncle. That man should be in his fifties, but he seemed like he really needed the job. We might have been more than forty, while the bill of vacancy I saw online needed just two persons. Well, we were told it was a three stage interview and if you failed at a stage; that was it.
The first stage; on giving us plain A4 sheets, we were asked to write out our name, reference number, qualification and date. Next thing, my name was called out. I felt maybe one big oga (boss) had fell in love with my name or my curriculum vitae and wanted to give me a job without interview. When I followed the lady who called me out, she led me to a previous office I was and asked me to sign out. After doing, she said I could go. Wow! This was something I had anticipated over the weekend and just like that, its over? I politely requested if I may know the reason I’m being asked to leave, she had no reason. I walked out really fascinated. Twist is, on getting downstairs; I stood for a while ruminating what had happened; then I listened in on the conversation ongoing beside me, and I discovered what we came for wasn’t really a job interview. It was a means of acquiring persons (or customers) for affiliate marketing. It was really really sad.
There have been times too were people who left their homes for job interviews never returned. It happened that they walked in onto kidnaper’s den for what they thought to be an interview.
PAUL KAY's BLOG 