crash test dummy

i recently attended an interview session with another international company, not oil & gas though, its more of a product/manufacturing/supply sort of company. if i tell you the products it produces im sure you are able to guess what it is, but suffice to say that almost most of the famous everyday products we use are from this company.

why did i go for the interview, u may ask? when its totally different than oil & gas which is my bread and butter with homemade strawberry jam? firstly, im sure you all know of my current dillema so lets not go into that and the second reason is mainly because they offered me a really interesting post..so i thought, why not, give it a chance kan? i might not want to move from the oil and maritime industry but who knows, maybe my rezeki is there, so its worth a shot :p

so the interview went well..really well..i was the epitome of cool, confident and answered everything smoothly and even able to make jokes appropriately to the delight of the interviewers, really, it was like in interview heaven, we were best friends at the end of it, even making plans where to have the celebratory lunch!

so i was confident that the job is 'in the bag', so to speak..

then they ask me to sit for a test.

a reasoning test.

i have a huge mental block when it comes to tests. am never good at it. regardless if i know the answers inside outside backwards forwards, i would still fail the test. my palms will be too sweaty for me to even hold the pencil properly, i would start sneezing or even worse i would start to suffocate and have difficulty breathing.. even the simplest question like how much is the original price of A if it was sold first at 10% less than at 25% increase which is at $3.25, or sumting of that sort, simple maths aite? but it took me forever as i keep hitting the wrong buttons on my calculator so it keeps giving me the wrong answer, then i panicked as my eraser couldnt properly 'erase' the pencil marks and i had to spend time erasing it out properly, and then i dropped everything and then...well, you get what i mean..

really, my body have the weirdest and most violent reaction when it comes to doing tests.

so i sit for the test at 2pm, finished it 3.05pm.

drove from Subang back to my office in Damansara.

reach my desk at 3.55pm, log in the computer, and make a dash to the loo and grab a cup of coffee enroute.

opens my google mail at 4.05pm.

and there it is, at 4.03 pm, the Regret Letter, a mere hour ish after i sat for the bloody thing, you know the type of regret letter, the "We have made a sincere effort to carefully assess your test results to match our requirements. We have concluded with regret that we are unable to offer you an opportunity with our Company, despite your admittedly fine qualifications, this decision was not an easy one to make. We see many fine candidates with excellent qualifications, and are forced to make extremely fine distinctions between them"

so as i thought, i failed misreably at the test.

so i confirmed back with the recruiter, whom in turn confirms that even though you excell with flying colours at the interview, at the end of the day, its the test that will make or break you. so whats the point of the interview then? apparently they have to turn away many people who are excellent academically, more than qualified and was absolutely fantastic in the interview, but the policy of the company is that the person must score a certain percentage of the test to be even considered! and admittedly, the recruiter admitted that they have been having a difficult time finding talents for their company.

duhhh!!!

oh well.

one down, three more to go.

sigh...