Most days interviewing with a client go smoothly with our efficient organisation making us appear as the proverbial swans. Candidates arrive like clockwork, perform flawlessly and confuse the client by being exactly what they are looking for. OK not exactly! One candidate, whom we met on Friday, had a pretty interesting and stressful experience just a couple of hundred yards from the meeting.
Around five minutes before he was due I called him to let him know where we were sitting, with significant understatement he told me that he might be a few minutes late as he had been hit by another car. Assuming it was a minor bump we ordered him a coffee, after a few more texts and calls and just over an hours waiting he arrived. What had actually happened was that he had been rammed by a car from behind, on the roundabout outside the hotel. He was being shunted along the road and looking in his mirror saw the driver slumped over the wheel having had what he later found out was a heart attack! As is typical of farming folk he handled it all in his stride, sorted the casualty, called the ambulance and left once everything was in order.
On arriving at the meeting, he impressed the client with his calm exterior, the only giveaway being the very shaky hand when trying to pour his sugar into his now cold coffee. On the positive side he is going back for a second meeting and I hope his journey there is far less eventful. This got me thinking about peoples experiences on attending interviews, I am interested in any stories that you may have.
Martin Thorley
Director