I had two conversations with recruitment consultants the day before yesterday. One chinwag was engaging, challenging and positive (Do I get extra points in the ‘buzzword bingo?’). The other was like discussing nuclear physics with a chimpanzee. There’s never much point, especially when the other person thinks you’re the chimpanzee and try as you might, using perfect chimp language, the pink, bald ape maintains an air of superiority and won’t let you tell them that you actually have a degree in nuclear physics from Primate University.
But that isn’t the annoying metaphor of the day. No real chimps were actually present. Here is a conversation I had with a pink, bald ape:
Recruiter: It sounds like you’d be a square peg in a round hole.
Dan: This isn’t the role for me, certainly.
Recruiter: We need to find you a ‘square hole’. Or we could make you into ‘a round peg’!
Dan: I don’t agree.
Recruiter: What shape hole do you want?
Dan (bemused): I don’t want a hole at all.
Recruiter: what?
Dan: I don’t believe I’m a peg. So the shape of the hole is irrelevant. I just want a really interesting job that I really, really like.
Recruiter: (silence)
Next week: One Gibbon on the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and another Gibbon (called Stanley) on stamp collecting, Lemur on being a Radio 1 DJ and a silverback on Gorilla Marketing.
Evident inability to think out of the box there, I think.
(I just need the other three corners now).
I refer above to the BPA (big pink ape) of course, not you in your guise as intelligent, lateral thinking Cornelius….
“One Gibbon on the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and another Gibbon (called Stanley) on stamp collecting”
what about the Funky one?
Lynne,
I should have gibbon it more thought…
dw
You didn’t mention the Ice cream van – you know, the Simian buy one..
Hahaha. i like the analogy. Although don’t underestimate chimps. Higher in the pecking order than recruitment consultants I’d say