Page 150 - James Caan - Get the Job you Really Want

financial side of business – but then turn it around, by saying you
have asked to be sent on a course to brush up on that.
Here are a couple of other options. You can say, ‘I am a bit of a
workaholic. I take my work home with me; I don’t know when to
switch o≠.’ That’s a great answer because it is a negative, but it

is very well put. Or, ‘I have been criticized for being a perfection-
ist. Sometimes it’s better to get the job done than to be overly
focused on the detail, because it means I take a lot longer than

other people. I realize that aspect of my work can frustrate my
colleagues, but it’s just who I am.’ Again, as an employer I want to
hear that.
The other line of questioning that often catches candidates
out is when I say, ‘Imagine you are standing in front of a client, a

client we have been desperately looking to win for the last year.
Unfortunately I have been taken ill and you have to step into my
meeting at short notice. You’ve got two minutes – 120 seconds – to

pitch me the company.’
I would say that nearly a third of the people I have asked to pitch
back to me have lost the interview on the back of that. They have
pitched it really, really poorly. I think there is no excuse for that.
And I have closed the interview no more than ten minutes after

that, completely switched o≠, because the pitch was so appalling.
I time the candidate, just for e≠ect. I get out my mobile phone
and say, ‘I’ve got a stopwatch here. Are you ready? Go.’ Then I sit

back and watch. Generally they manage to last no more than thirty
seconds before they lose the thread. I don’t care whether the job
is for an accounts assistant, a P A, a receptionist, or a managerial
position. I am not asking you for a two-hour lecture, I’m not asking

138 get the job you really want