The Trauma of Making the Sales Pitch

By: Onika Nkrumah

There is something about job interviews that leaves me, a grown woman, feeling like a laboratory specimen under a microscope.  I don’t know if it’s the controlled, artificial setting that most job interviews seem to suffer from, that gets me unsettled or if it’s the feeling that my whole life depends on its outcome.  What I do know is that I, an otherwise articulate, witty and informed individual, am almost always reduced to a quivering mess of nerves.

My resume is near impeccable.  It has generated for me six interviews for high-level professional positions over a two month period.  Many people are lucky if they get a foot inside the door of the interview room after eons of dispatching countless resumes.  Clearly, the employers are impressed enough to invite me to an interview, who wouldn’t be, after all I look good on paper.

I always prepare for any job interview, even if it’s as a stamp-licker, with the same tenacity and enthusiasm.  I research the company on the Internet, canvass associates for information, compile sample questions and call the company for the name of the interviewer and other specifics.  Nevertheless, the job interview process remains a truly traumatic experience for me.

There I sit, like a naughty school girl.  I listen to the questions, try to process them in my brain and conjure a response that will sweep the interviewer off their feet; but I end up sounding like Koko the monkey who was taught to communicate with humans using sign language.  O.k, it’s not quite like that.  Mercifully, I am always able to offer some feedback on anything that is asked of me.  Still I can’t help feeling that I did not dazzle enough and that I’ve let myself down by not being more conversant and demonstrative of my great talents and abilities.

I have made several vain attempts to put myself at ease.  I’ve took the advice I read somewhere, to imagine the interviewers naked and that this should bring a laugh and lightness to the proceedings!  I have tried telling myself that the worse that could happen is that I’d not be hired.

Why can’t I get it through my head that a job interview is simply a meeting of minds to determine if each is suited to the other.  Perhaps, it’s the relentless grilling, reminiscent of the Great Inquisition.  I once went to an interview at a prestigious ad agency in the City and before I was properly seated much less able to gather my thoughts; the interviewer had announced that mine’s was “the hot seat” and proceeded to fire questions at me quicker than a Mach 10.

I have only once attempted to gain some post-interview perspective on my performance from an interviewer and I was unsuccessful but to me it’s obvious, I couldn’t sell water to a dehydrated, near-death refugee in the blazing sub-Sahara!  Sales just isn’t my bag.  And a job interview is about selling yourself.

Yes, I do know that in this fast-paced world of ours overflowing, as it is with competition and bright young minds that the bar has been raised.  One of my favorite reality series on t.v. is ‘The Apprentice’.  I sit there in awe of their sophistication, savvy and grace under fire.  I sit wishing it were me and I have had to ask myself the question, “am I made of cutthroat corporate stuff”?  But just for once, for my ego’s sake, I would like to leave an interview feeling on top of the world instead of like Chicken Licken.

Only the fittest shall survive.  I agree, only the fittest should.  I must now decide where do I fit?  What is my life’s purpose, it may not be in a regular 9 to 5 format, Lord knows I hate being tied to a desk.  I need to be free.  Free to come and go. Free to create.  Free to dream.  Free to be ME.

It’s time that employers and human resource professionals leave sole reliance on the traditional interview format where it belongs, in a dusty heap!  Find new and innovative ways of truly ascertaining if a person is right for the job.  After all anybody can ace a job interview, well o.k not anybody; but then there are criminals that can fool a lie detector test, too.  This doesn’t mean that they didn’t commit the crime, it just means that they are manipulative enough to fool a machine.  It’s the same with the job interview, this mechanical process can be outwitted.  Not because a person can talk a good talk means that they can effectively walk the walk – which many companies discover to their disadvantage much later.  Are you the employer certain that you are getting the right person for the job? 

I’m toying with the idea of starting a support group for interview phobics.  Maybe that’s one way I can treat my irrational fear because I am just as great as I look on paper, in fact I am better!!

If you’d like to share a similar experience with the author, email nika@tstt.net.tt