Is it just me, or are job interviews getting harder? Used to be that you’d wear a tie, sit in a chair, answer some questions and that would be the decider over whether you had a long a prosperous future with this country. Yeah, seems kind of lacking now that I think about it, but still, it was what it was.
Now it’s all about asking off-kilter queries and…practical exams. Even jobs where you wouldn’t usually expect a stringent interview tend to have exactly that nowadays. I thought recently…you know what? I like being outdoors. I can operate machinery. Maybe I’ll get into the business of tree removal. Melbourne probably has loads of companies that operate in my local area, what with there being so many trees around the place and people wanting them removed, or at least pruned.
I signed up at the job centre and they took me into the back room, where there was a simulator setup. It was all sweetness and fun music, until I was told to stand in the centre and swing an axe like I was trying to chop down a tree. So I swung with what I thought was proper technique, my virtual self on the screen did the same thing, and I got a swing score of 2/5. For real!? My technique was judged as a 1/5, and so they told me that tree removal wasn’t the right industry for me.
Modern technology is weird. I’m hoping there’s some way to appeal the process because I think I’d make a great tree pruner. I don’t even mind being in the sun for hours on end, provided I can slip, slop and slap. Maybe I should find a specific place in Melbourne that does tree pruning and apply directly…bet they won’t be such swing-speed micro managers. Though I will work on my tree felling technique, just in case. Don’t want to be caught out there.
-Giles