Interview Tales

Recently, I got a request and ended up being an intern interviewer. Thanks to the pandemic, there were a lot of things to pay attention to, and I’m sure the HR team went through quite a bit of trouble 😅. During the interviews, I could still only see the upper part of people’s faces beyond the barrier, and because of the masks, it was sometimes tough to catch what was being said. But hey, we managed to interview about 10 candidates safely, and I got treated to a pretty fancy lunch box! 🍱

Since the interviews were for a field dealing with numbers, most candidates were calm and quiet. But let me tell you about a few who stood out…

There was one candidate who, before answering any question, would say, ‘May I think for a moment?’ and then, with closed eyes, bow their head for about 30 seconds before saying, ‘I’ll answer.’ It was like a reincarnation of AlphaGo! 🤖

‘It must’ve been tough coming for the interview in this heat.’‘May I think for a moment?’‘…’

Then there was this candidate who would enter a buffering state when faced with slightly difficult questions, as if their brain hit pause. ⏸️

‘What was the moment you felt most proud of yourself in life?’(Pause)

But the one I remember most fondly was the candidate who, when asked to describe themselves in one word, said they were like a wet wipe. At first, I thought they were going to compare their strengths to the characteristics of a wet wipe, but nope, that wasn’t it.

‘My friends call me a wet wipe.’‘Why’s that?’‘Because I always carry wet wipes around.’‘…’

‘Hey buddy, I guess that makes me a wet wipe too.’

A tale of holding back what I really wanted to say. 😅