Simon, my interview is in twenty minutes, I’m in the car park and I don’t have any ****ing trousers’.
It was a baking hot day and my candidate was wearing sorts and a t shirt to travel down to Reading for interview. His first face to face meeting since before lockdown.
He’d picked up his suit from the dry cleaners en route. When he reached the destination it was his plan to get changed somewhere, but then calamity stuck.
Inside the plastic wrapper, there was a suit jacket, but the trousers were gone! ?
I got the frantic phone call. ?
“I’ve travelled four hours to get here and don’t have any ****ing trousers, this is so embarrassing, I’m going to have to cancel”
I phoned the client….not going to lie this news had rattled me!
“Cheryl, we have a problem, my candidate is outside ready for interview but he’s not wearing any trousers”
I explained the situation. We chuckled, then laughed, then got to that point when we couldn’t actually speak! ?
“Get him to wear everything he’s bought down and we’ll try to ignore his legs!”
Oh righto, good plan. Wait What? We sniggered…a lot!
In my most calm and professional tone I took a deep breath before telling him it was top half suit, shirt and tie, bottom half pink Ralph Lauren shorts with smart shoes!
There was a long silence then
“Okay, I’ll do it”, it was like he was going on some SAS mission behind enemy lines!
I must admit I thought he’d bail, but he went for it.
Can you imagine him sitting in reception looking like that. It’s like a scene from the office!
Anyway, the obvious ice breaker of his attire and the chuckles led to a great interview. He was calm under pressure and kept his cool, pretty easy as he was wearing shorts right!
2nd interview was by MS Teams and yesterday he accepted the job of Solutions Architect!
In all my born days I did not expect to have to manage a situation quite like this one but that is why dealing with people is so much fun!
The names have been removed to protect the innocent…you know who you are ?
Thanks for letting me share this little story!
Note to self…always check your dry cleaning before embarking on an interview four hours away for a career defining role ??
#interview #jobseekers #interviewing #recruitment #hiring #talentacquisition
