“So, what are you good at?”

More than one person has told me that for online jobs in Sydney, there are a couple of recruitment consultancy punters that are the folk to speak to. Total pros, if anyone can sort you out, they can, blah blah blah. Unfortunately they haven’t worked out how not to sound like recruitment consultants yet.
I think most of us had the joy of going through this about a thousand years ago when we were still children (or that might have been the way they make you feel), and combined with the fact that we’re obviously brilliant at what we do, could partly explain why there hasn’t been a lot of eagerness to revisit such times again. Needless to say, visiting one of them for a ‘consultation’ is still the cracking time it was way back when. Being asked by some bird who’s a GCSE in typing away from working down Tescos what you’re good at is a right laugh, her sitting there grinning expectantly at you, pen poised over some assessment form whilst you cough and splutter about what your strengths and weaknesses are.

“Well, number one, I’d say my main weakness is a lack of ability when it comes to self assessment vis-à-vis the search for employment. I find myself focussing on things like that expensive and trendy looking cactus you’ve got on your desk there, and wondering what it’ll feel like when I impale my face on it thirty seconds from now… number two is a definite inability to listen and play along with the type of absolute bollocks you lot come out with, it makes me want to get a job in a chill warehouse and never ever leave it.”

Obviously I expressed this to the doris through the magic of body language whilst expressing verbal agreement with the recommendations she ‘threw out there’. My CV now contains lines like: “I have excellent communication skills, strong team and relationship management skills and first rate multi-tasking abilities.”

What the fuck does that even mean? I can speak and I’m not a mentalist? Even then, the “strong team and relationship management skills” bit is true only when compared to the night pickers at ADL.