Appaku Mensetsu

Have you ever taken an abuse during interview from your interviewer? Well, if not abuse then at least insulting questions or reaction to what you said during the course of an interview? Well, my friend did. Want to know more? Keep reading...!
[ By the way, when abuse/insult is done deliberately as a part of company culture/practices, then in Japan that category of interview is called "Appaku Mensetsu" (圧迫面接).

Last week this friend of mine (let us call him "Takeshi") was in for an Appak Mensetsu. It was an 1:1 with senior manager of his company. He was told to sell himself to this manager. Oops! sorry, senior manager. But let us use short "mgr" for the sake of less typing efforts. So it was an interview within the company. He prepared nice, slick power-point presentation about Self-PR. Education, certificates, key deliverables of 14 long years career.

Interview started. Greetings exchanged, objective of interview discussed, political correctness taken care of and he got permission to walk his boss through Self-PR. He used his 14 years of experience and gave nice presentation in 10 minutes summarizing his achievements. When Takeshi thought he has done his best and have impressed Mr. Mgr, position in new team is in his pocket, here began an ordeal of Appak Mensetsu.

First, his certifications in different area got ridiculed. "I don't care what certificates you have!" mgr said. Well, it was just warm up. What followed later was total humiliation for him as Mr. Mgr went on describing what kind of members are required in his new team. It had all skills except the one that this friend of mine has. In the end, with a smiling face mgr asked him, "so would you like to join this team?". If you failed to read between the lines, obvious answer would be "Sorry I do not think you need person with my skills!". But, when you are confronted with an offer "Take it or leave it", you would answer "Yes I can't wait to start my work in this new team!", with a smile on face.

Takeshi just did that and left the room leaving final decision to mgr. Nobody knows what is stored in future. One can only live in present. Bit by bit, a day at a time. With a smile on face.

Note:
Practice of Appaku Mensetsu is, if not banned, stopped by many companies these days. Today's candidate can be your tomorrow's customer and you certainly do not want him to have bitter experience about you.

More about Appaku Experience can also be found on Wiki.