Things They Made Us Do At My Group Interview At The Jam Factory Village Yesterday

1. All fifteen or so applicants were left to wait awkwardly around silently eyeing each other up for over 25 fun-filled minutes.


2. We were given bingo-style cards with boxes containing phrases like "Has a sister", "Plays a musical instrument" "Is currently reading a novel", "Plays sport competitively" etc, and instructed to mingle and aquire signiatures from six fellow applicants in boxes whose phrases applied to them.


3. Each of us had to stand up and tell the assembled company what our favourite movie was and why, what "our goal" was, and our most embarrassing moment. I was the only person who couldn't think of a most embarrassing moment.


4. We were given transcripts of three hypothetical staff-customer interaction scenarios, divided into groups of three and instructed to discuss how well or badly each situation was handled. One nominee from each group was then required to give a short statement of the group's findings.


5. We were given eight minutes in which to complete a short standardised maths test. I only finished about a third of it. So did the guy next to me, though.


6. We were herded outside again and then called in three at a time to participate in two one-on-one roleplay exercises. These involved assimilating a sheet describing the two scenarios and some relevant information about protocols etc. I did everything right on a fuctional level but I kind of fucked up the presentation aspect of it, since by this point all I could think about was how badly I wanted the whole thing to be over.

I think the experience of participating in recent Neurocam group assignments was beneficial. The vibe of vague dread and menace engendered by the mysterious nature of the Cam was substituted with standard job-interview dread and menace, but in other respects it was an eerily similar kind of experience.

Unhappily, I miscalculated the number of pages of The Magus I had left to read. It was actually 300. Now it's 274.

Comments

[jojo]

Hey! I've done that! I failed sadly enough. I think my absolute inability to add three popcorns, a coke and a bag of M&M's outweighed the hilarity of our little perfomance at the end... Either that or the end bit wasn't s'posed to be funny. One of the two I'm sure....

[Teigan]

Yeah, I did almost the exact same thing - one of the scenarios I got involved 'upselling' ("We do a lot of upselling here at Village.." *shudder*) a combo comprising a drink, a popcorn and a choctop to a customer who only asked for a drink and a popcorn. This involved working out that 4+3=7 which is a dollar less than the combo price of $8. I should have figured it out in advance but I didn't and then got quite stumped trying to do this highly intricate calculation on the fly.

Really stuffed up that bit. I'll be very surprised if I go to the next round.

But maths was never my strong point. You're a bookkeeper, what's your excuse?!

[jojo]

Oi! I have a calculator! And if that doesn't cut the mustard theres always excel... I am painfully craptacular at maths sadly enough.... I'm sure I shouldn't have had that much difficulty with the maths test.

Our little situation was when a cinema had been overbooked at a premiere and I had to convince one of the 'patrons' to leave. I offered them so many little rewards and freebies... But it kinda turned into a bit of a farce as it turned out. : )