I.T. Recruitment – it’s part sales, part counselling. We’re trying to find possible career opportunities for a guy whose current role, he has just discovered, is being advertised behind his back. After a great deal of private dicking (of the ratiocinatory kind) he has evidence to suggest that he is en route to being let go.
He’s hurt, not least because it looks like half of his work colleagues are in on the conspiracy of silence. ‘I’ve spent the last four weeks playing detective while having to play dumb,’ he said. ‘I feel like Columbo.’ We warned him that after finally confessing to having covertly replaced him, his boss will probably pull a gun, and that, like Columbo, he should stay calm and wait for a disgruntled, invariably female secretary-with-a-secret-grudge to pull her own gun and shoot the boss just before the cops arrive. He’ll thank us for that advice.
I doubt my own boss would start interviewing people for my job behind my back. But if it ever happened, I believe I would be magnanimous about it. In fact, I’d like to take this opportunity to offer my best wishes to anybody reading this who also happens to be thinking about stealing my livelihood. If you genuinely deserve my desk-space more than me, you should have it. Fair’s fair. In fact, to prove that my grapes aren’t sour, I’d like to offer you some ‘insider tips’ on how to wow my boss in a job interview.
1. For God’s sake, refer to yourself ONLY in the third person throughout the interview. Our boss prefers that kind of cool detachment. You may, however, gesture towards yourself while saying your (full) name. But use both hands at least.
2. Remember to shake hands as well as kissing/hugging – it’s old fashioned but it’s polite. Incidentally, my boss developed her hand-shaking style in 70s Harlem. Be creative, be funky. Be gymnastic.
3. Studies have shown that smoothing one eyebrow continuously with a moistenened fingertip is almost as irresistible as using pheromone spray.
4. Use pheromone spray – it worked for me. I suggest the mail-order-only brand Seduct – only £2.99! Per litre! (That’s genuine musk-gland you can smell.)
5. A heavily tattooed face screams ‘commitment’.
6. Remember, you’re only a balaclava and a heavy-booted kick away from making an unforgettable entrance.
7. Be funny! Interviews can be inhibitively stuffy affairs at times, but it’s nothing that you can’t alleviate with humour. I’d recommend waggling your finger out of your fly while barking ‘You like?’ in a loud, gutteral, Mediterranean accent. If that doesn’t get my boss ‘ROFL’, as the kids say, then my name’s not a monkey’s uncle.
8. On the subject of names, be sure to address my boss correctly. She likes to be called Mama.
9. Sock puppet, baby voice.
10. Round here, wearing clothes is considered a little too… formal. If you must dress, keep it basic. A pelt is fine.
So now you know what I know. It’s up to you what you do with it. And don’t worry about me – I’ll get my reward in the next life for this exercise in large-heartedness.
Enjoy my desk. Don’t, whatever you do, open the bottom drawer.
