Everything is going well.
You had no problem with traffic (the transport strike isn’t until next week).
You found the perfect parking spot.
You arrived early to the job interview, gave a firm handshake and didn’t stutter while introducing yourself.
There’s some eye contact going on and you’re even deploying workplace-friendly jokes that allow the interviewers a chance to chuckle.
Their questions start innocently enough, asking you to cover your backstory and how you ended up in front of them today.
You run through the well-studied mental checklist list of your life’s work, recall your first professional experience, and how it taught you the value of work, and even manage to segue into that great story about being confused for a visiting Head of State at that business conference in Holland.
You ace the “What do you know about our company?” question because you read the About Us page on their site at least fifty-eight times (and even paraphrased it through multiple iterations in Word to make sure it didn’t sound like you had).
Questions and perhaps some misgivings about your proficiency in a certain skill?
Answered and assured.
Doubts about that gap year between degrees?
Quelled and quashed. (You were so good to those orphans).
Your confidence is soaring. You’ve got this job. Champ.
And then.
“What’s your greatest weakness?”
Bollocks.
(Well, anatomically speaking…)
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, the voice inside you screams.
The one question that does make you stutter and stammer.
The one that elicits every “um”, “er” and “ah” you have inside you, the one that leaves you hanging for what seems like an entire day and does make you talk to yourself in a never ending sentence much like this one shut up shut up shut up.
What will you say? A total of five seconds have passed and it’s already too much. Tick, tock, tick, tock.
Time is running out for you to say something credible but you can’t stop thinking of how you’ve already been completely stopped dead in your tracks and that your own perceived confidence may well have been unbearable cockiness and Oh God, did you really tell that joke at the start?
Think! No thoughts. Just the image of you holding up a board with your name written on with magic marker and waiting for someone to say, “you are the weakest link, goodbye!”
Forever.
“I guess I’m a perfectionist and that sometimes gets in the way of accomplishing all my goals.”
No way are you going to be that jerk. You still have some credibility here. No! Think!
“Only the strong prevail. I eat the weak for breakfast.”
Wow. Alright, Maximus.
“Well, I have trouble asking for help sometimes. I could certainly use some right now.”
They laugh gently.
You breathe.
You find your groove again.
You explain you’ve let yourself become stretched too thin sometimes in the past, not knowing when to say no until it was too late. It’s hard sometimes to figure out the boundary of how you can help and contribute and where your involvement is actually jeopardising your own position. But you’ve learned your lesson and try not to let a couple of bad experiences stand in the way of you continuing to be a team player. You just need to be careful to not over-promise and under-deliver, and be wary of those who might take advantage of this, especially when you’re first settling in.
They’re smiling. You did it.
Woah. You did it! CHAMPION.
“So, do you have any questions for us?”
Oh crap. You knew you forgot something.
Looking for your next challenge?
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