Page 152 - James Caan - Get the Job you Really Want

questions about their C V. Most interviewers will be happy to take
you through what you have already prepared. But what happens
sometimes is that even after talking through the C V, I haven’t
really got you. I am trying to work you out. So I will say, ‘That all
sounds interesting, but I need to know who you are – tell me

about you. Who are you outside work? Are you married, have you
got kids, what are they doing?’ Your face will drop, because it’s
the one aspect you haven’t thought about. I have taken you away

from your chosen subject. I usually learn quite a lot by asking
that question, and by a follow-up, if you have children: ‘What
career would you like your kids to be in?’ If you are really proud
of the industry you are part of, I would expect you to want them
to follow in the same line of work. If you don’t, there is a message

there for me. And at the end of the interview, when I am reflect-
ing on the discussion, out of the forty-five minutes, that might
be the only thing that sticks in my mind: the fact you aren’t that

committed to the work you are in.
Over the past few years we have seen refracted through TV
a version of what a tough job interview is – either the Dragons’
Den process or the section of The Apprentice where the remaining
contestants go up in front of Alan Sugar’s hand-picked team of

interviewers. That whole process is designed to test the contest-
ants’ mettle. It is less about content than about stamina.
Whenever I interviewed sales people, I always used to put

them through one particular exercise.
I would give the candidate an ashtray and say, ‘Sell me this
ashtray.’
They’d come back with, ‘But I don’t smoke.’

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