Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Dumb as a Stump

My boss has somehow inveigled me to discard all my pressing work and help out with interviewing candidates for several open positions here at work. (I really don’t know how she gets me to do some of this stuff.) I’ve had a steady stream of absolutely ridiculous applicants over the past week and we might just have a problem if the next person does not know how to correctly utilize an adverb. Is it wrong to reject a candidate because of poor sentence construction and grammatical errors?

Here are some cerebral treasures I’ve gleaned from the past few interviews:
“I have a few friends that have teached for some years and they really like it.”
“I think kids are more cuter than adults.”
“I had to learn that very, very quick and it was acrost the whole company.” (two-for-one-special!)
“I had to use precise . . .ness in that job.”
When asked about her work ethic: “I don’t believe in lying or stealing or anything like that.”
When asked what was challenging about a former job: “They kept asking so much from me. Hello! It’s only a job!”

And my personal favorite:
Me: Tell me about some of your long-term goals, personal and professional.
Applicant: Well, I really want to go overseas and teach English.
Me: That sounds very interesting. If you had a choice, where would you like to go?
Applicant: Well, my two favorite countries are Italy and London. So probably one of those.
Me: (sputtering) Oh. Sounds . . . nice.
Never mind that London is not a country, you can’t go there to teach English because, guess what, they ALREADY KNOW ENGLISH IN FREAKIN’ ENGLAND!!

4 comments:

Corrine said...

I sure do love you!! You know how to keep people laughing, well at least me!!!!

The Hathorns said...

That reminds me of David Kershaw's senior quote .in the yearbook Something like, "English. Who needs English, I'm not going to England." But I guess in your applicant's case in would be "I'm not going to London."

Ashley said...

Kim your posts make my day, so just don't EVER stop!! I am NOT articulate in any way. Sounds like an interview I might give. Maybe that is why I don't have a job. :0)

Amy Brinton said...

Quality, Kim!