triskellian

This afternoon, I was an interview guinea pig for an interview skills course. The job they were 'recruiting' for was an area in which I have no skills or experience, so my application was a work of fiction. This seemed perfectly reasonable to me, but my colleague who organises the course was rather surprised, and so were the people running it. The man in charge of the course advised me to use real examples from my actual work life to answer their questions, and this seemed reasonable, until the panel asked me for experience I don't have, have never seen anyone else having, and know nothing about. So I invented something. The organiser, debriefing me afterwards, said 'those were all real examples, weren't they?' in the manner of someone who is experienced in these matters, and can tell the difference between true stories and false ones.

They thought I was a wonderful candidate. They talked, at the feedback session, of how the panel had managed to elicit enough information from me to confirm I could do the job.

When I came clean (only to the organiser, not the trainees) he didn't believe me, and said he was surprised I'd been able to sustain my story through repeated questioning. Even once he'd believed me, he seemed to be of the opinion that, of course, I knew what I was talking about, I'd just chosen to use someone else's examples instead of my own.

Roleplaying as practice for lying at interviews ;-) Now all I need is someone willing to fake me a reference, and I can get a job doing anything.