The Night Before…
“2:53!?“ I pulled the blanket over my head and let out a groan of annoyance. I had been trying to get to sleep for almost 3 hours without the slightest hint of success. Nothing had helped to calm my chaotic mind, neither the audio book of Sherlock Holmes’ case ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’, nor the Chinese history course’s 8th lecture on ‘the Later Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms’. I just could not stop thinking about the first job/phone interview I would have the next day! I rolled to my left side, away from this monstrous alarm clock whose ghostly red digits haunted me every waking minute. “Ok, let’s see. What should I answer when they ask me about myself and why they should hire me?” This is it! This is the question that, how simple it might seem, will keep you up all night.
The mean thing is, it SEEMS so innocently simple and straight forward; however it is the trickiest question you can imagine. You do not want to sound too full of yourself but also not too insecure. Balance and sincerity is crucial! However, fact remains though, how can you possibly sum up a complex individual (and all individuals are complex, otherwise they wouldn’t be individuals) in a mere few sentences? Furthermore, how can you possibly communicate who you truly are with a handful of power words? They ALL suit me in some way or another: Skilled, flexible, persevere, hardworking, punctual, trustworthy, motivating, caring, creative, enthusiastic, life-loving, enchanting, ecstatic, passionate, flamboyant, mind-blowing, brilliantly intelligent, the queen of awesomeness and most of all extremely humble?
I giggled under my blanket. “Haha, if the situation wasn’t so serious (since it was an interview with THE company) I should totally say that and see how the recruiter reacted, haha!” A glance over my left shoulder let me shiver and lose my smile. 3:02. “What about the question, why hire me?” Hm, I frowned in the darkness and recalled the conversation I had earlier with one of my best friends about this topic. Carina was truly an expert in my eyes and had given me some nice tips and things to think about this afternoon when we prepared for the interview via role-playing. “It is not easy, but certainly doable, San. Name your competitive advantages without sounding arrogant.” “But which ones should I choose? There are soooo many!” I cried theatrically and took on the posture of a fighting Roman gladiator. She laughed and shook her head. “Well, between you and me, be happy that they won’t measure your employability on your sense of humor! Because in this case, ‘Süße’, you probably wouldn’t even make it to the FIRST round, haha!”
“Ha-Ha!” Hm. My competitive advantages, hm. 3:20. “That’s it! Sleep! I really need to sleep! There is no need for worries, because I prepared the best I could!!! (1) I looked up the info of the company – trice! 2) I lend out books on e-commerce and researched on it in detail for days!! 3) I thought about all possible questions and their answers and even made a role play out of it!!!) Arrrg. Let’s try the heaviest artillery of relaxation I can imagine – Meditation music!” And finally it clicked. There was nothing left to do than to go with the flow. And that was exactly what I did.
As the gentle wave sounds of Kitaro’s ‘Endless Water’ swiftly carried me away from the waking world, I saw myself standing on the planks of robust and trustworthy boat. All my competitive advantages were by my side and we all looked out into the blue endlessness of the calm ocean that we were about to sail. As I saw ‘doubt’ and ‘nervousness’ trying to crawl up on the starboard side of its robust deck, I was happy that my friends ‘creative’ and ‘enthusiastic’ tossed them right back into the sea. I turned around and smiled at my competitive advantages happily and gratefully, because they gave me the confidence to say: What ever may come, I am ready.
