Step one: apply, step two: get an interview, step three: get a job... or not!

I’ve been looking to hire people in my job, to help us develop the European market for the past 2 months.


I receive resumes from all over the world, with people with all kinds of backgrounds:

Old people, young people… females, males…. Experienced, non-experienced… educated, non-educated… with brain tumours, without brain tumours.

Wait… WHAT?

Oh, I forgot to tell you about this story!

It’s a true story!

So last week I received my usual amount of applications via email.

Most people are in the situation that I was six months ago… lots of experience, but no viable offer coming to them.

However, one of those applications caught my eye because of the bizarre, unusual, out-of-nowhere statements.

Let me tell you, I didn’t know if I wanted to cry or laugh when I read this guy’s profile.

Or if I should hire him because he spent 6 years backpacking the “earth” when he was 20 (his words), or discard him because he sent me a 3 long page resume (what is that?) with dates starting from 1974????

Or maybe hire him because he had a clarity regarding the reasons he hated every other job he had had (hierarchy wasn’t for him, or his boss was too demanding, or he wanted to move to a more easy job), or not hire him because he quitted 27 jobs in the past 40 years (no wondering the three page curriculum).

Or give him the opportunity because he had two children (“dependents” as he express them to be) and his mother had died of cancer when he was 30 years old… or maybe not, because he said he didn’t take authority very well, and he preferred to be his own boss (don’t ask).

But most importantly, I didn’t know what to do because his life had been so wonderful (full of change and novelty), but at the same time, so sad and conflicted.

He even admitted to have a brain tumour, so I didn’t know if I should write and ask him how he was coping with this news or tell him, how on earth was he planning on achieving the tasks that I needed for the position with all that baggage?

Jeez! I would be signing on an ashram should I be him… committed to dedicate all my life to love and peace, because, what else is to life when you have a brain tumour?

I laugh… I admitted.

I laugh till my eyes watered, but I also was sad, because I had to decline him as a possible candidate, and I couldn’t possibly tell him that he was too straight forward and provided with too much information for someone to even consider him… because truth is, we need more people that are like that:

In your face, no turning back, pushy, resilient, brutally honest and full speed straight forward…

LIKE ME… and my twin sister (one of the little things that we have in common… aside from looks, of course).