Unlikely to resume
Whenever somebody's applying for a job, and other people are advising them as to how to fill out the application form or how to conduct themselves in the interview ("when they ask if you have any faults, say you're too much of a perfectionist") I tend to reflect that this is one of these subjects on which everybody is an expert despite the fact that nobody actually knows anything.
After all, how would one become an expert on performing well in job interviews? Surely only by experience, by having many, many interviews. And how would one come to have many, many interviews? Surely only by failing them. If you were an expert, if you knew what it took to succeed in the interview, you'd have got the job, wouldn't you? The only way you gain experience in job interviews is by proving you're no good at them. And the best you can ever get at them would be adequate.
I had a similar thought when watching Newsnight yesterday evening and hearing Mark Urban refer to the London suicide bombers as "relatively inexperienced". Relatively compared to whom? Experienced suicide bombers? And how would one possibly gain any experience of a job like that?
posted by ejh @ 2:20 am
4 comments
4 Comments:
Best advice would come from an interviewer who knows what he or she is looking for.
Does anyone know why the suicide bombers prefer to die than leave behind a package to go off?
The mastermind who persuaded them to carry out the act is worryingly gaining experience and achieving "success".
I was struck by the way that the media and some commentators have picked up on the possibilitiy of a "master mind". After all, such a figure is the staple of many films and novels. But why does there have to be such a person? After all, the bombs appear to have been fairly simple devices, that could have been put together by a group of disenfrancised people with access to equipment or materials from the right sources. After all, if you try hard enough, it's usually not to difficult to find someone willing to sell you anything. Perhaps there is such a mastermind - it would be useful to the tabloids who have to have some story to sell their papers, but I doubt we can say for sure at this stage, and idle speculation will do little but obscure the real issues.
As to the choice between suicide and leaving "a package" - well firstly it's easier - no complex timers and no risk the bomb will be found. By the way, lets call it a "bomb" not a package. We after all have nothing to hide about this event, lets not pretend it's something nicer than it really was. But I suspect the real point of the suicide (apart from the obvious emulation of attackers in the Middle East) is that the bomber, in reaching the decision to attack, has so little left worth living for, that he or she would rather die in the attempt. In my opinion this is where they would have differed from Middle Eastern suicide bombers, who have lost so much, they have little else to strike with but their own bodies.
The best we can do, to ensure that such terrible, tragic events are never repeated, is to remove as many of the sources of grievences that people around the world have against this country - I suspect the political willpower to do this is lacking amongst those who shed a tear for the victims today, but order more bombs on Iraq tomorrow.
So are the bombers driven by guilt (they have a good life compared to some other Muslims around the World) or martyrdom?
A couple of decades ago it was easy to spot suicide bombers by the way they walked.... they used to strap heavy concrete protection around their private parts in order to enjoy the full benefits of the "afterlife".
Yes, let's try and eradicate their grievances, but if it is simply the Western (and godless)life style they object to we are rather helpless...
I know how you learn about how to do interviews, because I have learnt. It is by conducting interviews. Once you know what it's like on the other side you know what they are looking for. And it's mundane shit. Someone who can do the job, certainly, but above all someone they'll get along with and who won't either be too shit or too good.
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