BENIGN TO FIVE
There's a commercial on TV in which a man sits at a table and stares silently down the barrel of the camera, before showing off a mysteriously tattooed forearm, producing a twisted piece of metal from inside his shirt and then unceremoniously blasting a full deck of playing cards on to the table. He smirks, pours a drink and finally speaks: "So that's me. Let's talk about you." I have no idea what this has to do with bourbon, or anything really, but I'm still going to relate it back to your career.
The worst job interviewers want you to do all the work for them. They are hopeless at reading others or between the lines. They don't trust their instincts. They want you to sit down at the table opposite them and shout your virtues at them. They want you to treat your professional attributes like ex-display mattresses at a cut-price bedding warehouse with a threadbare advertising budget.
"TEAM PLAYER! TEN YEARS OF EXPERIENCE! HIGHLY SELF MOTIVATED! YOU'D HAVE TO BE CRAAAAAZY TO INTERVIEW ANYONE ELSE!" They don't really want an interview at all - they want a sales pitch. And you shouldn't give them one. Instead, you should be like the bourbon man - taciturn, brooding, inscrutable. You should bring forth flotsam for no apparent reasons and drink alcohol in front of them.
You won't get the job - you won't have "sold yourself" well enough - and that will have been precisely the point.
To get this gig, Jonathan Rivett showed the editor half a juniper berry, a railway sleeper and a portrait of Denis Walter. He blogs at www.haught.com.au
