Mysterious Job Interview

As I approached college graduation with a history degree that I didn’t yet appreciate (I had not figured out what aspects I loved), I had no goals or expectations. It was a different time. I recall saying two weeks before graduation, “I guess I’ll have to get a job or something.” 

This was not related to the social norms of a time when the customs of the 1950s were still holding on - for women anyway. I had no expectation that I’d be marrying and raising a family. Let’s just say I was open to the possibilities. Any possibility. 

A friend suggested the civil service test. So, I took it and received in response a letter from the government asking me to come in for a “special” interview for those who had scored in the 95th percentile and above. No mention of a position or an agency. Just a job. 

There was a state office building on Broad Street in Philadelphia and my recollection is the interview was held in a conference room there. So, on a lovely spring day, I headed downtown to learn more about my new opportunity. I wasn’t thinking about career path. I was thinking about location. At the time I favored Puerto Rico and Hawaii. 

I arrived and was put in a waiting room worthy of any American institution of the 1940s. It was then 1970. The only other person waiting was a young woman much more of the flower-child type of the era than I was. She was very sweet and chatty and eagerly engaged me in conversation. About what? No idea. We did establish we were both waiting to be interviewed. For what? Again, no idea.

My next recollection is sitting around a conference room table with three other interviewees. At the head of the table was a very pleasant interviewer, male, Caucasian and possibly wearing a white shirt. And, a tie. Definitely a tie. Did he keep his jacket on? Possibly not. The atmosphere was very friendly and informal.

I couldn’t help noticing that those of us who were there to be interviewed could have come from central casting. The flower-child sat across from me. I called the fellow beside me the used-car salesman—not because he resembled any actual used-car salesman I had ever met but because he fit the Hollywood stereo type perfectly. I don’t remember the fourth person except he was a white male. I suspect we were all in our early twenties.

We were each asked the same questions I now realize were all about personal ethics. I only remember one. The son of a diplomat (from the Middle East? Hazy on that.) gets drunk and in a car with diplomatic plates runs down and kills an American citizen in DuPont Square. What do you do? (As to why they expected me to know about DuPont Square since I didn’t live in DC, I couldn’t say.) 

The flower-child focused on some half-truths that supported the victim’s and the diplomat’s families.

The used-car salesman came up with out-and-out lies to make it all go away including the diplomat’s kid who was on the next plane out of the country.

I have no idea what the fourth person said. He was a ghost. 

I laid out a plan to do the right thing. I specifically recall telling them—naively but wisely—not to try to hide the incident. Cover-ups always fail. Had they known what lie ahead, they should have hired me for the Nixon White House right there and then. But they didn’t.

I wasn’t offered any “special” job but I was eligible to be hired. I was  asked what locations I preferred. I got two choices. I put Puerto Rico and Hawaii. I never heard from them again. 

Possibly, they—whoever they were—figured out I wasn’t particularly serious about a career in government service. Or any career, actually. I can imagine my evaluation. Unrealistic. Naïve. Possibly stupid but freakishly good at standardized tests. (I loved them.)

I’ve come to believe that the criteria for an invitation to this special interview had less to do with percentiles than with character traits. I suspect that there were questions peppered throughout the test to catch personality traits they found desirable and I might describe as pathological. 

I was telling a coworker—I’ll call him Rob—who had once held a top level security clearance about this interview. 

I told him about the flower-child, the used-car salesman and the ghost. “Ghost probably got the job. I can’t remember a thing about him.”

Rob appeared amused. His response?  "You were the only one being interviewed that day.”

It feels kind of exciting to think that might be true. 

Jane Kelly 2024