First Interview 2007 - whao! what a fluke!

1600HRS
11JANUARY2007
MONDAY
CHRUCH STREET, SINGAPORE

The office is great! Excellent decor, I must admit! New York Mayor surely has an unique approach toward office culture.

The first job interview in the new year and am I in for a shock!

The email masked the interview as a "Recuritment Event" with the purpose of introducing the company, its business and career options. Instead after a brief 5minutes introduction, a mass interview begins.

Into 5 groups comprising between 5 to 6 interviewees each, the day's highlight is a forum-style group discussion with chessy topics ranging from banning smoking to legalizing gambling and for me the eternal conflict - are men better managers than women. Needless to say, the stand is largely politically-correct if not outright boring and predictable. Classical arguments of gender being inmaterial at ability assessments, blah...blah...blah....

Despite the post-mortem revealing the series of "debates" being less than truly controversial and heated, I have to admit that my performance is less than sterling as well. The words that came out of my mouth at the moment on stage very simply went out of line with my intended mental script. The arguments I gave lacked wits and humor not to mention true insight. DAMN! All in all, this is the least satisfying of all interviews and may I have better preparation the next time round.

All said and done, the recuritment strategy is truly brilliant. How else can you put the candidate to the test. Having a forum-style discussion meant that the better candidates stands out immediately among the peers sharing the same stage. The many skills and abilities assessed in a single round - confidence, presentation, poise, thinking, logic, idea formulation and articulation - are all put to real demonstration not just mere advertising on the resume.

Going through this round of interview, I am able to see my weakness and the strength of others. A learning experience after all albeit the demoralization served!