Lego Vs group interviews

I used to love Lego as a child, I could build an awesome tower using all the bricks out of the bucket fobbing off any of the instructions to build an airport or submarine as that was dull, no instead I'd make some Picasso style creation which in my eyes, was simply amazing and another bonus was how quickly you could swallow one and then end up in A&E (mine was within approximately thirty seconds, and it was a red specific brick).

Lego is still just as popular as it was back in my youth, I visited a friend who has a five year old boy and this young whippet had recently moved on from the big Lego bricks to the small ones (growing up you know) and I found myself losing all sense of time and reality working alongside him, then I suddenly thought; I have done this before in adult hood and no, I didn't choke on one.

Adult Lego

So where have I, as a fully fledged adult toyed with Lego before. I had this terrible flashback to when I was about 18 and I went for a interview for an established company (a'hem) which began with an initial "telephone interview", you know where they used to ask you:

"If you had an angry customer would you...1. punch them in the face, or 2. relax because remember, the customer is ALWAYS right

I was passed onto the secondary stages. However just to digress, how could anybody fail those interviews...the only thing I can think of is that a large amount of cats are applying for jobs, as they blatantly couldn't press the right button on the keypad. I look back now and it almost felt like I was going for the final stages of Britain's Got Talent, all for a call centre role on minimum wage and not forgetting the 24 hour, 7 day a week shifts I'd have to start forcing myself to go too.

Second stage

In I walk, all fresh faced and nervous about what was about to happen, and suddenly I find myself surrounded by other people whilst quickly being split into teams. This was new to me, and I did feel like I was enrolling to the Army. "Sit down and be quiet" squawked a particularly Alpha female manager, if she'd asked us to do ten sit ups...we probably would have done.

Then, said Lego was slammed by said Alpha female onto the table into our pathetic groups, with some straws. Our objective was to...well build something. There I am, as a mortified teenager suddenly realising I was never going to get this job as: A: I used to literally build towers and B: Swallow them so all in all, not good.

In the end

I look back and think who does this anymore in such an excruciating manner? Well tons still do, as I know a friend that went to a interview recently for a very well known shoe brand, and he was told, at the prime age of 39 to sit on the floor in a circle and in pairs, paint a picture to express how he "felt about the brand" needless to say he didn't stay. Though I did argue that at least they had glitter pens as well as paint so why not get creative? He didn't find that funny.

Yes, I've had other interviews that were excruciating, for example I was asked "how would you sell this pen" I mean come on...and I answered terribly as I started listing its qualities, like it was a fine wine but it wasn't, it was a bic.

Here at Data Clarity we don't do anything like that. We don't ask people to build Lego or to pretend they were dealing with a difficult person. Nope, because we actually want to learn about the persons history and soul, as that's all that matters to us - not if they can build a bridge with Lego. If the person wants to become part of the Data Clarity team then we'll happily have them on board for their personality as if the attitude is right, the rest can be taught. We'll always expand in the right way.