Loads of traveling and plenty of work have kept me from my blog… However, I am back Baby! 

I have spent a lot of time interviewing and meeting people over the years and it has intensified in the last couple of years. It is such an interesting scene. Meeting great people, meeting people who blow you away, meeting people of lesser ambitions and people who lie to your face… I quite enjoy it… perhaps the latter the least though. I have learnt valuable lessons even from people I have absolutely no intentions whatsoever to hire. Just a couple of months ago I spent two hours with a person I knew, already after three minutes, I would never hire… Wrong cultural fit. However, I learnt a lot from this person. Why? Because I listened. I am good at listening… especially when it interests me:) Being a great listener and having a general curiosity is crucial in order to become skillful at interviewing.

I have however, become somewhat immune to the Bullshit… (Am I allowed to use this language? I guess…. It’s my blog:), if you don’t like it, log out… but I digress). There is a lot of nonsensical rubbish going on in interviews. Anyone who has ever been to an interview knows what I am talking about. Candidates exaggerating their achievements and corporate representatives proclaiming why their Company is the best. I would like to promote honesty and integrity, candidness and openness, instead. Wow, wouldn’t that be a lot nicer and a lot less suspenseful? Did I get the job? No you did not. Thank you and goodbye. Don’t call me, I will call you…  Or… Do you want to work for us? No, even if you were the last employer on the planet I would not want to work for you… Cheers! 

I think you are getting my point. Can we drop the games and the pretenses? Interviewer and interviewee both. Faster and clearer communication in a brutally honest environment would serve both parties better. Is this utopia? No. I believe this is where we are headed in 10-15 years from now. Soon we will be so busy that neither the interviewer nor the interviewee will have time for the games and dances of today… but hey, what do I know.

I am moving on. I now want to talk to the interviewees of today (and tomorrow) I have noticed the last couple of years that many candidates these days want to have a great career, high salaries and flashy titles but they also want to work 40 hour work weeks. That equation do not exist in my world. I have never met a successful person who has worked a maximum of 40 hours/week… Myself included. It does not exist my friends… Success and hard work are synonymous, I am afraid. I get the fact that family and friends are important to obtain work – life balance, as it is so fancily called. However, success comes by choice and not by chance. Therefore, you have to make a choice to put in the resources that are required in order to obtain success. You are not by definition entitled to success just because you have a university degree. Your entitlement is success, with or without a degree! Will it come easily? No, it will not… It will come through blood, sweat, tears and a certain amount of sacrifices. Are you not willing? Then don’t call me… I may call you… but most likely not!

I want you to achieve your dreams… Do you? Be ready to pay the price!

For those of you who are meeting me shortly on the other side of the table, don’t worry:) be yourself and that is all you can ever be in any case and that is all I expect!

Good luck!