Part of our rethinking recruitment experiment.
The actual interview consisted of me metaphorically holding on to the seat of my pants and jumping in feet first, I held nothing back.
It was the most fun I’ve ever had in an interview.
Co-creating the questions and being able to ask Abby & Andy questions in return had a lot to do with it - from the very beginning I felt like an equal talking to other equals.
It felt akin to that quiet moment when half the party have gone to bed, and you're left sitting out with the sleep-renegades under the stars. The moments where the universe just sort of falls out of your lips, winding together in a sea of shared ideas and half-thoughts.
Or something else equally as poetic.
The truth is I’ve tried to write this blog post several times, but I don’t remember much of the interview itself other than I how it felt (auditory processing is not my strong suit).
Later, however, Andy would tackle me on one point. He would ask, “Why did you tell us that you were fired from your last job?”
And it would catch me off guard.
I did, indeed, throw that factoid out during the last 5 minutes of the interview and then mentally dug myself a 'embarrassment hole' to climb into and wallow in afterwards.
“I don’t know, It just felt really important to be transparent and accountable” – I’d say.
And he would reply: "I think you were testing us, to see if we could be trusted." I laughed and rolled my eyes at myself - and agreed. Yes, I probably was.
Though the deeper truth, if we want to get into it, is that I carry shame from my ‘failure’ and I needed to know that I wouldn’t be held to some idealised impossible standard again - because burnout is one hell of a bitch and I have zero desire to wrestle with those teeth another time. I needed them to know I wasn't perfect, and that I wasn't intending to try to be. (Even if my perfectionist tendencies may want to say otherwise).
They held that for me, unafraid of the weird squidgy bits or the sharp edges, and they shared stories of their own. They related to my experience.
For an interview it was a fucking weirdly intimate process.
At the end of it all, waiting for the final email, I felt peaceful. Regardless of getting the job or not, I had already 'won' something.
After dissecting myself a thousand ways, judging myself, analysing and working through my thoughts and fears and creating something I was truly proud of despite it all, things felt different.
I no longer wanted the job. I was no longer sure I had wanted the job in the first place. I think I just wanted to know where this went, what this could mean, what would happen if we did do things differently?
I had already gained so much from this experience. I would be okay if that was as far as this went. I would feel gutted if I didn't get it, for sure - but I wasn't leaving without anything, I was leaving more healed, more hopeful, and more knowledgeable than I had arrived.
That may be everything it needed to be.
I felt I was where I needed to be.
And it was absolutely bat shit ridiculous that a recruitment process, a process that I thought I knew all the rules for, was what facilitated such personal growth.
I bloody love absurdity.
I bloody love that this exists.
And I have never felt more lucky or more privileged to be where I am.
I now constantly and consistently feel like I am having an out-of-body experience as the ‘comfortable professional work environment’ I thought I knew gets turned upside down and shaken until all the pennies fall out of it’s pockets and we have enough change to go buy ice cream.
I worried that, after creating such a great video in my application, that the ‘difficult second album’ wouldn’t be much of a follow up. Yet, somehow, I am now on my third greatest hits album after having learned several new instruments, just for fun.
Our work isn’t easy, it is still hard to be vulnerable, to be brave, to push forward past the ‘but this is how it should be done’ but I am never alone, and I am trusted just as I trust in return - and it has been like this from my very first day. It has felt strangely seamless and right to all of us that I'm here. It's almost as if building a human first, relationship first, recruitment process also enables the entire team to 'hit the ground running', together. It's almost as if trust enables better learning, better growth, and better innovation.
I look forward to telling more of these stories, to trying and failing, and to crafting the small moments that challenge everyone to do differently.
It’s been a ride. It continues to be a ride, and every time I look down I’m in a different seat, riding a different animal.
Tally-ho.
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