Ten-year publishing industry veteran Shari Jones took to her blog earlier today to weigh in on whether the junior candidate she interviewed last week found her to be likeable.
“Some things he said, I was sure I was doing well,” says Jones, of the 22-year-old man who showed up half an hour late, “but other times I didn’t know what he thought of me as a superior. Ugh, I think I blew it!”
Ms. Jones, who graduated magna cum laude at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne (adding, “Ugh, this sounds so braggy”), interviewed the candidate yesterday and has spent the intervening hours recounting things she did wrong, from “being awkward” while shaking the candidate’s hand, to “just feeling like I wasn’t impressing him, like all my questions were so dumb.”
“I thought about wearing a dress, but thought I’d look too needy about hiring him,” says Jones, while looking over the heavily wrinkled resume the applicant had produced from his back pocket. “Then I was thinking, pants and a nice top, but I didn’t have time to iron before I left the house so I wore this other top, which is nice and everything, but I just feel like it’s a little tight and I don’t feel my most comfortable, and I think he could definitely tell,” says the project director about the young man who had been carrying a $10 bag of weed in the Velcro compartment of his sneakers during the interview.
Ms. Jones’ friends barely assuaged her concerns, telling her that it was probably fine, and if anything, it’s kind of good to be nervous.
“When I asked if he had any questions, and he said no, I felt like I had totally ruined everything. He hated me. Who even am I anymore?” asks Jones, staring at her reflection in the window of her corner office. When asked why she, the interviewer, cared what an underqualified interviewee thought of her, she immediately stammers, “Why? Did he say something about me?!” before bursting into tears.
“WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN FIVE YEARS?” she screams, alarming one of her two full-time assistants, followed by, “Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid,” while repeatedly hitting herself in the head.
The candidate Charley Rice says of the incident: “I don’t remember; I was pretty hung over. Which interview was this again?”
