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Eddy Says
Eddy Says: Hello, my name is Personal Details
By Eddy Temple-Morris | Published on Monday 27 June 2011
Right now, young people across the UK are thinking about facing the big bad world, as their education draws to an end and they wonder what they’re going to do with what they’ve got. It’s a jungle out there, so I thought this might be of use to some of you.
This week, I helped out a couple of kids from a secondary school near me who were taking part in this cool initiative where they are taught about CVs and interviews, and then despatched off to do mock interviews with real people in their place of work. These two wannabe music producers came in to Global Radio, where I mock interviewed them for a prospective job as a producer at Global’s music publishing company, where you would work with the likes of Ellie Goulding.
The first one, let’s call him Sam (that’s not his real name), arrived on the dot. Punctuality is so important for these things, as they’re usually stacked like dominoes and if one is late then they’re all late.
Sam was so nervous, his hands were shaking and his voice quivering. He just couldn’t relax, until the moment, some 20 minutes later, when I said “interview over, let’s see how you did”. At this point he visibly changed, sat back in his chair, exhaled deeply, and smiled for the first time. I chatted to him a bit and learned more about his true character in the next two minutes than I did in the entire interview.
Sam’s CV looked good, name in bold at the top, in big letters. I instantly remembered it, that’s good, but he made the cardinal error. A whopper of a spelling mistake. In these days when CVs are created in computer programs that actually tell you a word looks wrong, a spelling mistake is unforgivable. How could I trust you to register a song with PRS so that it gets its royalties when you can’t even get your own CV right?
If I’m being honest, I initially struggled to remember the name of candidate two because, unlike Sam, the words in bold at the top of his CV were ‘Personal Details’ and that’s what stuck in my head. I do remember it now, but if I had reams of CVs and was looking for a reason to weed some out, this might have been for the chop simply because I couldn’t see his name! But let’s call candidate number two Jon.
Now, Jon sat back in his chair, splayed his legs out like he’d been there a hundred times, and smiled from the off. I liked that. Because he was relaxed, he enjoyed it, and so did I. Sam was so uncomfortable that the interview had been slightly awkward. I know it’s easier said than done, to suggest you enjoy an interview, but try to focus on the fact you’re at a company that does something which is fascinating and inspiring to you, ask questions, enjoy it, get involved, smile-like-you-mean-it!
Jon’s CV didn’t look as good but had more info and a brilliant paragraph at the end. I’ll get to that in a second, but first my tip is this: don’t put your GCSE or A Level grades on your CV, just put what subjects you got, so people can see, at a glance, that you’re well rounded academically. Grades are pointless because, as has been widely reported, marking is so generous and the exams so easy these days that everybody gets A grades, so they mean nothing any more.
But Jon’s last paragraph was brilliant. Headed ‘Goals And Ambitions’, it basically said he wanted to go on a particular music production course, because it’s the best one, but that first he wanted to take a year off and travel the world, to give him something to write about and enrich his life experience. This showed me he was self aware, intelligent and thoughtful. He would have got the job for that one line.
That reminded me of a useful little story: Back when I had a proper job, when I was ‘Head Of’ something, hiring and firing for a Big Production Company, I had to find a director. I narrowed the candidates down to two. The first one was qualified right up the wazoo. Every orifice had an acronym coming out of it. He’d been to college, masters, post grad, courses left right and centre, he could not have been any more qualified if he’d been Stephen Spielberg’s teacher. The other candidate had lived. He’d travelled, he’d been around the world, met people, had a totally different ‘education’ – the University Of Life. He was so much more interesting, affable, entertaining. I gave the second guy the job.
The first candidate was surprised and called me to ask what he’d done wrong in the interview. I told him this: “You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re a nice guy, you got everything going for you, except the fact that you’ve been in some form of institution your whole life. Forget about more courses or qualifications, what you need is a round-the-world ticket, just go, meet people, see things, experience life first hand, then and only then can you be in a position to properly document it, film it, or write about”.
I’ve no idea whether he took my advice to heart but I sincerely hope that within a few weeks of it he was on a beach in Thailand, a beer in one hand a spliff in the other and giggling with a German girl, a Swedish girl and a random guy from New Zealand.
Of course, there are individuals and jobs for whom the qualifications are paramount, but if you want to impress somebody like me in an interview, you won’t do it with a certificate or a few letters after your name, you’ll do it with your demeanour, your smile, your enthusiasm and awareness of both yourself and the world around you.
Whatever you choose to do, I wish you the best of luck. Now fuck off around the world and talk to me in a year or two!
X eddy
