How many inter­views have I been to ? I’d say about thirty in Canada so far, ¾ of them in my first year in Ottawa. I was des­per­ate for a job but the odds seemed to be against me. At 20 years old, my resume was pretty short. I had no pre­vi­ous work expe­ri­ence in Canada. I had no ref­er­ences but abroad. My Eng­lish wasn’t that great and I wasn’t a Per­ma­nent Res­i­dent yet.

Every­day, I would go through the same rou­tine : jobbank.ca, Ottawa Citizen’s employ­ment sec­tion, send­ing resumes and cover let­ters almost non-stop till noon. Then I would wait for the phone to ring.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I knew I could learn fast, but I didn’t have the guts to apply for jobs that required “pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence” and just lie. I was too qual­i­fied for McJobs but yet not expe­ri­enced enough for office jobs. I was stuck in between, as usual.

But it didn’t stop employ­ers to call me for inter­views. Of course, I met some decent peo­ple who would just tell me I didn’t fit the job, or would give my tips for future inter­views. Some of them would even hire me. But I also had… inter­views from hell.

The I’m not telling you interview

– Hi, Zhu ? Would you be avail­able to work tomor­row night ?

– Sure. What’s the location ?

– It’s at 2356 Car­ling avenue. You’ll have to fill up for the stock taker, from 11 pm to 5 am.

– Alright… And what’s the hourly rate ?

– Oh, I’m sorry, I really can’t dis­close that. Oth­er­wise, no one would take the job.

The slave mar­ket interview

– Hello Mrs Zhu. I’m call­ing from the staffing agency. I have your resume in front of me, and I would have a few more ques­tions.
Absolutely.

– So, I’m cur­rently look­ing for peo­ple to work in cus­tomer ser­vice for the fed­eral gov­ern­ment. First ques­tion is, are you avail­able to work from 5 am to 11 pm ?

– Well, I guess so, but how does it work ? Are there shifts or… ?

– Just tell me whether you’re avail­able or not.

– Sure, sure, I’m… available.

– Means of transport ?

– It depends actu­ally. I share a car and rely on the bus the rest of the time. I mean, it all depends on where the office is.

– Can’t tell you that.

– I cer­tainly have no prob­lem get­ting around, but at 5 am, let’s say, I’d prob­a­bly drive.

– And at night ? What would you do ? Let’s say, if you have to work overtime ?

– You mean… after 11 pm ? Depends on the bus sched­ule. I can drive too. But could you tell me more about the posi­tion ? It’d be eas­ier to fig­ure things out.

– Well, we don’t have a job “per se”. I was just test­ing you. Thank you.

The two years too late interview

– Hi, may I speak to… Zhu, please ?
Speak­ing.

– Yes, hi, I was won­der­ing if you were still available.

– To…?

– Yes, I have your resume right there and we need some­one part-time start­ing of today. Tonight actu­ally. Well, if you could make it by 5 pm, it’d be appreciated.

– I’m sorry, who am I talk­ing too ?

– This is Quiznos Sub, located on Queen.

– Oh, I’m sorry, unfor­tu­nately I found a posi­tion about two years ago… I didn’t know you kept resume for that long.

– That’s too bad. You’re really not available ?

Duh. I stayed by the phone for two years, wait­ing for your call.

If you’re nice, next time I’ll tell you about the time I sold flow­ers in front of Ottawa’s LCBO. If you can keep it secret, I’d appre­ci­ated.

Related posts:

1. Hello Frozen Hell…
2. The Road To Hell
3. Sum­mer In The City
4. 7 Cana­dian Work Cul­ture Facts You May Not Know
5. It’s Been a Hard Day’s Night