On Monday I had a job interview in Bayonne, NJ. I had gotten a call instructing me to avoid the building that housed the Board of Education, and instead enter the high school itself, where the interviewer’s office was located. Needless to say, I made the every mistake the interviewer warned me about, parking in the east side of a building. I didn’t know until later that Bayonne High School was essentially a complex of six buildings, included their BoE. To make matters worse, I could not parallel park for the life of me. Luckily, one of the teachers had stepped outside and took pity on my pathetic driving skills, guiding me into a spot and pointing me to a door entrance. That entrance, however, was the Board of Education area, and a secretary kindly escorted me to where I was supposed to be.
I was ten minutes late for my interview, which is obviously a horrible first impression. The interviewer didn’t seem to mind, as he had his own issues regarding the broken air conditioner and some notes he had to prepare. He looked over my resume, which made me feel uncomfortable, as if I were naked, my entire value as a human being decided on my list of negligible experiences and carefully phrased descriptions. He was impressed with my high school’s reputation, as well as my being a Magna Cum Laude graduate.
He then proceeded to ask the usual interview questions: asking for me to describe my interests, to say how my experiences would help me as a teacher in his district, and of course: to tell my favourite book.
English majors are asked this question all the time, and honestly, I’m never prepared to answer it. If you’re an avid reader, you know how hard it is to choose an “all time favourite.” Each one has its own unique value, but the whole experience of reading and being transformed by it is more than the sum of its parts. I think a much better question is “what are you currently reading?” It avoids the painful act of discriminating our beloved reading collections while still offering equal, if different, insight about the responder.
As expected, I stumbled, and eventually recovered enough to sputter the first book that came to mind: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I’d done so much research on that in uni that I practically breathed its text for two years as an undergrad. I then fumbled over explaining its merits: its theme of human potential and moral dilemmas, its rich narrative structure, and the fact that it was written by a teenage girl.
He asked me a few more questions afterward, and I left the interview more relieved than happy. I don’t know if I really put my best foot forward, but it was a nice day out, and it was hard not to be positive.