Ok. Thank you. Next . . !
Quite why someone would want me involved in the interviewing of new recruits is beyond me, but that is what I, along with the news editor, have been doing for the last two weeks, writes our News Blogger David Burrows.
Firstly it made me feel old (I've been a journalist now for 13 years so I suppose I am. Perhaps it's time I settled down and got a real job).
Seeing those youngsters coming through the door looking like they were about to face a firing squad (instead, all they got was a verbal volley from my boss) brought back memories of my days as a lamb to the slaughter.
Fortunately I was head-hunted from the dole queue for my first job, so the interview was fairly straight forward. However, I did get a bit of a shock when I turned up for work on the first Monday.
"Where's your camera bag?" the photographer asked me.
My reply was something along the lines of: "Huh!?!"
Apparently the office had been told I was a photo-journalist. There were jobs booked for me in the photographer's diary and everything.
This had come from an end-of-interview comment.
"Anything else you would like to tell us?" the editor asked. "Any other skills?"
I replied that I'd done a GCSE in photography. That was the extent of it. Still at least they didn't sack me.
My interview for the Star was fairly straightforward too. By then I was a chief reporter with newsdesk experience and a little more confident. Not that I needed to be. I got the deputy news editor on to the subject of football, and more specifically Shrewsbury Town, and the interview sailed by.
Which was better than the previous time I had taken a Shrew to water but failed to break the ice.
It was an interview at the Bristol Evening Post. On the day Shrewsbury were playing Bristol Rovers.
Standard opening question at the interview: "What do you know about Bristol?"
"I know Rovers are going to get stuffed by Shrewsbury tonight," I replied chirpily. The three members of the Burrows Inquisition just stared at me. For about an hour, or so it felt.
I didn't get that job, and haven't been back to Bristol since.
I hope the people I interviewed found me less intimidating. I'm not sure I could intimidate a mouse, but there we are.
David Burrows is the Shropshire Star's National News Editor.
Comment on his blog in the box below.
