87th Chapter Meeting: 'The Interview' Edition

Interviews.. Interviews.. Interviews

The all-too-familiar, stomach-churning, gag-inducing rite of passage everyone has to undergo, before we land that coveted job, scholarship or internship. As nerve-wrecking as it sounds, interviews also represent one of the most crucial aspects of job-hunting, as it’s the first opportunity for you to meet your potential employer and more importantly, its your chance to tell if a potential job is really the right fit for you.

For Anchorvale’s 87^th Chapter meeting, “The Interview” was the theme of the day, and our SAA Sridhar kick started the meeting by posing the first interview question of the day – “What was your most Memorable Interview experience?” After a hilarious round of introductions, our Toastmaster of the Day (TMD) Benjamin opened the meeting, electrifying the atmosphere with his energy and fist-bumps. Our Club President Zulhafni was up next, as his opening address touched on the very real issue of handling tough situations (aka interviews) and how pressure can turn the roughest rocks into diamonds.

Under the thoroughly enjoyable facilitation of our TMD Benjamin, the project speeches began, with Chee Sian speaking about the importance of Upcycling – showing that with some will and determination, even unwanted waste can be transformed into useful products.

Alvin then shared about his recent visit to Tokyo, Japan where it dawned on him to treasure his unique experiences and affiliations. Best enshrined by the concept of Ichi-go ichi-e ("one time, one meeting"), one is reminded of the serendipity and sincerity of chance meetings during one’s travels or work.

Our TMD Benjamin, then took the stage, speaking about the relevance of the happiness index, and how stress levels may be influenced by having children (hmm.. singles take note)! Well, there are definitely more things to Life than just work, interviews and stress. 

With every job interview, there is always the need for personality profiling and for his "Winning Proposal" speech, Danny shared with us his company's latest personality profiling tool - the Kawa Compass! (for more information, head over to: http://www.kawatraining.com/ )

Swiftly after, we had the project evaluations, deftly executed by our team of experienced evaluators, Norman, Chee Sian, Danny and Zulhafni.

The next major highlight was the Table Topics – Extreme Interview edition, awesomely masterminded by Alvin. Taking the idea of a Job-Skill set match to its logical extremities, all contestants had to randomly choose a Job Position and 3 character traits. Their task then was to convince everyone why they’re most suited for this job. Behold, our uncanny candidates as follows:

Candidate	Position
Ricky	The Tai Chi Lawyer
Prasad	The Self-Entertaining Astronaut
Sindu	The Underrated Wrestler
Norman	The Ugly SuperIdol
Chee Sian	The Politician with a ‘Big Appetite’
Sridhar	The Secret Agent with a British accent
Benjamin	The Puppy-eyed Superhero
Danny	The Taxi Driver in Skinny Jeans

After an intense round of sales pitches from each candidate, which mostly reduced the audience to tears from laughter- one clear winner emerged. It was Chee Sian, the Politician with a Big Appetite who emerged victorious! From this table topic, it also revealed a side of Chee Sian that only one can imagine =)

Furthermore, the Best Speaker Ribbon was shared between Benjamin and Danny while the Best Evaluator went to Zulhafni!

Kudos to everyone for participating so actively and for making the Interview Meeting so enjoyable! Always remember the skills for your future interviews, be it your boss, girlfriend, boyfriend, mother-in-law etc..  =)

Cheers

Norman