10 minute interviews

I've got a new idea I wanna market. It's revolutionary and it would certainly give Jamie Oliver and his 30 mins meals a run for his money. It's the 10 minute interview!

On Monday I went for job interview at 9am. Probably the hardest time of the week for an interview...apart from maybe Friday afternoon. But I got there with time to spare. I walked in and greeted the receptionist at 8.55am. At 8.57am, the hiring manager came out and we walked into her office. What proceeded were a series of rushed, machine gun fire questions. Tell me about yourself. Why HR? How do you manage competing priorities? Where do you live? Are you a lesbian? Well not quite but you get the point.
Each question I answered was cut off and she was onto the next one. She told me she had got 150 applications through SEEK. Obviously she was hating the interview as much as I was.

But she kind of had a point. Although it was extremely rude (she could have humoured me a little bit), experts say that we make up our minds about people in the first 8 seconds of meeting them. And the rest of the interview is us deciding whether our first impression was justified. Apparently she didn't have to ponder that one too long...

At 9.09am I left her office. I'm surprised she didn't save on postage and hand me the 'unfortunately you have been unsuccessful but best of luck' letter there and then. I received it 2 days later in the letterbox instead.

Now that's what I call efficient!