Things They Made Us Do At My Group Interview At The Jam Factory Village Yesterday

1. All fifteen or so applicants were left to wait awkwardly around silently eyeing each other up for over 25 fun-filled minutes.


2. We were given bingo-style cards with boxes containing phrases like “Has a sister”, “Plays a musical instrument” “Is currently reading a novel”, “Plays sport competitively” etc, and instructed to mingle and aquire signiatures from six fellow applicants in boxes whose phrases applied to them.


3. Each of us had to stand up and tell the assembled company what our favourite movie was and why, what “our goal” was, and our most embarrassing moment. I was the only person who couldn’t think of a most embarrassing moment.


4. We were given transcripts of three hypothetical staff-customer interaction scenarios, divided into groups of three and instructed to discuss how well or badly each situation was handled. One nominee from each group was then required to give a short statement of the group’s findings.


5. We were given eight minutes in which to complete a short standardised maths test. I only finished about a third of it. So did the guy next to me, though.


6. We were herded outside again and then called in three at a time to participate in two one-on-one roleplay exercises. These involved assimilating a sheet describing the two scenarios and some relevant information about protocols etc. I did everything right on a fuctional level but I kind of fucked up the presentation aspect of it, since by this point all I could think about was how badly I wanted the whole thing to be over.

I think the experience of participating in recent Neurocam group assignments was beneficial. The vibe of vague dread and menace engendered by the mysterious nature of the Cam was substituted with standard job-interview dread and menace, but in other respects it was an eerily similar kind of experience.

Unhappily, I miscalculated the number of pages of The Magus I had left to read. It was actually 300. Now it’s 274.