The Job Interview

In bold: key vocabulary. Tap any word in the text to see its definition.

Priya had rehearsed for a week. She knew the company's history, its three biggest clients, and the answer to every question the internet said an interviewer might ask. On Thursday morning, rain was running down the glass walls of the office, and she was sitting across from the marketing director, Ms. Ferreira, feeling ready for anything.

The first twenty minutes went smoothly. Priya described her last project, explained how she had increased newsletter sign-ups by forty percent, and talked about what she would do in her first month. Ms. Ferreira nodded and made notes. Then she put down her pen, picked up a sheet of colored paper from the desk, and said, "Here is my last question. Tell me something you don't know how to do. Then do it, right now, in front of me."

Priya's mind went blank. She had prepared for questions about weaknesses, and about failures, and about where she saw herself in five years. At no point had she been warned that she would be asked to perform a task she could not do. Were she to choose something simple, it would look like a cheap trick. Were she to pretend to know something, she might be caught immediately.

Then she noticed that Ms. Ferreira had already folded the paper into a half-finished origami crane, which was sitting on the edge of the desk. "I don't know how to make one of those," Priya said at last. "Could you show me?" Ms. Ferreira hesitated for a moment, which Priya did not expect. Then she smiled and said, "Of course."

What followed was awkward. Ms. Ferreira folded a corner, unfolded it, frowned, and started again. Priya asked what the second fold was for, and the director said it was a kind of triangle, more or less. Twice, the paper tore. Priya kept asking questions and trying her best, and the bird on the desk slowly turned into something that looked less like a crane than like a very small, very confused duck.

After ten minutes, they both looked at the result and burst out laughing. "Well," said Ms. Ferreira, wiping her eyes, "you asked for help instead of bluffing, and you stayed calm while we failed together. That's what I wanted to see. When can you start?" Priya stared at her. "Just like that?" "Just like that. I should warn you, though, that I had no idea what I was doing. I watched a video about cranes last night, and I was convinced I had memorized it."

Priya looked at the duck, and then at her new boss, and decided that this was probably the start of a good working relationship. Had the company been a little less honest, she thought, she would have felt better prepared. But it was precisely that honesty that made her want the job.