The desire for what you don't have now

I guess a job "wannabe" would fall in this category.

Years ago when hiring editors for a business magazine I got a letter from a fellow who was currently a Park Ranger at a National Forest. He manned one of those isolated fire towers.

He went on and on in the cover letter about how he always wanted to be a writer or editor and that because he worked around trees, and paper came from trees, that he felt like he already had a background in printing and publishing!

We all thought he'd spent too much time alone in the woods.

I own a small Graphic Design compnay and in one of the first interviews I ever conducted, I asked the candidate what was their 5 year plan. They said it was to find a job where they could lean everything they could about the Graphic Design industry so they could start their own business.

When we asked one VP candidate where she saw herself in 3 years, she said, quite seriously, "Paris."

I am an ex- Navy Civil Engineer Corps officer. In my last assignment in the Navy I directed all of the public works, housing, transportation, construction, and environmental programs on a 12,000-acre naval air station. I was responsible for $400 million worth of real estate and hundreds of employees. I was recently interviewed for the position of Deputy Commissioner of a major state agency in Massachusetts. When asked, “Where do you want to be in five years?” I responded that I would like to be the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The silence among the members of the interview committee was deafening, and I knew right away that I was not going to get the job. It turned out that the job went to an inside candidate anyway.

I interviewed a year ago a recent MBA grad from a top tier business school for a marketing manager position. Not only did the candidate not research our company before hand but she also showed up for the interview wearing a tank top, teared jeans and flip-flops.
After 10 min. in the interview, she managed to say that her dream job would be to open one day a little retail shop in Virginia.

We sent her home in record time.

A couple of different prospects informed me that they had to keep their cell phones turned on all of the time, and since they were volunteer firemen, they would have to leave work at anytime they were notified, regardless of how much they were needed here.

I once interviewed a new grad who had studied in a city with two Universities - one being one of the very oldest in the world, the other being only 5 years old and while good not exactly on a par. The candidate went on about his time in the city and how the university there had a world-class reputation. I was clearly meant to assume he had been to the old and great unversity. One thing he had overlooked - I had his resume so knew he'd been to the new university .....once thing he didn't know: I'd been to the old one! Needless to say, for attempting to grab the cache of one of the oldest establishments in the world he didn't get asked back.

During an interview at a global, leading investment banking firm we were interviewing a candidate for an entry level 'finance' job. During the session he passionately stated that he was "disgusted with financial services." He also made it a point to let us (the interviewers) know that he had a lot of connections, was there because his dad was a friend of a senior partner and that the only thing he did to prepare for the interview was "put on his best suit." Needless to say he did not make it to the list of "recommended hires".

Talk about awkward. I was interviewing someone for a mid level research position at a TV network and asked my standard questions about why the candidate wanted to work in reearch. get a sense of her passions. She went on (at length) to explain how much she loves production and the freelance PA assignement she had and how she wants to learn about TV so she can get a really good production job. After informing her that the job was, indeed, RESEARCH, the rest of the interview was simple courtesy. needless to say, she did not get the job or a call back.

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