How Could She NOT Get It?

A friend of mine is, shall we say, arrogant. The kind of arrogance that makes a person certain they know everything there is to know about something, even if their exposure is limited to having taken some survey course freshman year of college or watching a PBS special on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Naturally, that arrogance carried over after graduation as we began our respective job searches, and I was assaulted, time and again, by my friend with declarations of how great this conversation went or how hopeful she was about that interview. Needless to say, it was exhausting hearing all that self-praise without anything ever coming to fruition.

After what seemed like multiple lifetimes of hearing her ego strokes, my friend still hadn't received any job offers and was beginning to show some signs of frustration. Being the good friend I am, I offered to review her interview style and offer some unbiased tips for improvement. Sure, you might say I did this simply to make myself feel better about my own unemployment and job search, but I'll leave that discussion for another day.

So, I asked my mock questions, conducted our faux discussion, and threw out anything I thought an interviewer could have possibly asked her. All in all, she seemed competent, well-spoken, and generally herself (though far more agreeable than typical of her normal disposition).

The shocker came when she started talking about her previous experience. She had once worked for a company that was both widely-known and highly-respected in her industry (the kind that really perks up your audience in an interview), and hoped, perhaps understandably, that her experience there would make her a shoe-in at a rival organization. The problem was, with each reference to her former employer, she kept mispronouncing the name. The name of a company so widely known, all I could wonder as she said it was "how could you possibly mess that up?!"

But it gets worse. Instead of offering references from her former employer, she provided a list of references that were personal (her advisor from undergrad, her friend, and her boyfriend's mom!). She actually thought that her education, her knowledge of the work, and having worked at a household-name brand company would be enough to get her foot in the door.

My friend is a victim of her own arrogance, so entranced by her distorted self-image that she can't seem to recognize any possibilities for self-improvement. Even a novice at the job hunt knows to represent your previous experience with well-versed pride and to offer a reference list filled with direct managers (right?). I haven't heard any good job-related news from her recently, so I can only assume things haven't changed a bit.