hablando solo

Dear Mrs. M,

I know you are reviewing somewhere between twelve and fifteen thousand CVs for this position.

If you do not mind, I would like to save you a little time.

My name is not important. That is, it is not important now, relative to how important it will be in a couple of decades. You would have heard of me then, if, for whatever reason, you had not decided to invite me to join your company in the coming weeks. Time will show your decision to be a masterstroke, and I’m pleased to give you an early chance to make my acquaintance. I hope you will value the immensely lucrative name-dropping you will be enabled to do as a result in just a few years’ time.

I realise that I have begun my Narrative CV with ‘I’, which is generally a no-no, but I need you to recognize quickly that I am not somebody who plays by the rules. That will be important in the role that you have prepared for me, and I am sure it will continue to be important as I rapidly advance through your business landscapes, carrying us to the greener lands which your (and soon to be our) organisation seeks.

I also feel that it is important to explain the heartbeat behind this Narrative CV. I believe that I am not just a list of bullet points and percentage marks and dates and text, you see; I am a story, just like each other soul. To be fair, most people do not carry the weight of destiny, as I do, but you will see that I carry it with grace and aplomb. It is not easy, really, to prepare to be a best-selling author, an acclaimed playwright, and, in all likelihood, a future President, but I pull it off. Normal humans also have their struggles, I am sure, and I can empathise.

You will find that I am quite meticulous when it comes to details. I can give you one example. Being the young embodiment of a future societal hero and sage, as I am, I am disciplined in recording every detail of my personal life, to save time for the people who will someday rake my past for detailed advice and wisdom. Every restaurant where I eat, every hotel in which I stay, every bookstore from which I source my personal library; you will find that my paper trail is every bit as long as my list of qualifications for this position.

Finally, I am informed that you think it is very important that candidates for my position understand ‘feelings’ and exhibit high levels of empathy for clients and coworkers. I do have emotions, and I have cried, once before, so I am more than qualified in that respect. It was a good cry I had, with sobbings and heavings and all that. It was thorough enough that afterward I was pretty much sorted out. I haven’t had to cry since.

If you need to cry when I accept your offer – the accepting being a formal matter of ceremony, of course, as the offer itself is a foregone conclusion – I would understand. I wouldn’t join, but I would understand. (I also write poetry, as any scholar-statesman must. If you don’t cry when I accept the offer, you most definitely will when you read the words I have heart-bled onto paper.)

It is with the utmost gratitude that I thank you for this offer, which I imagine you are just on the point of sending over. I have most of my email accounts, all of my personal websites, and my LinkedIn profiles ready for your message, and I look forward to impressing you in person. I appreciate your opening of this offer to other applicants, in order to preclude charges of preferential treatment, which are generally thrown about by unfortunates with below average levels of talent, ability, and intelligence.

Signed,

The Carrier of Grandeur

HALL OF WORDS SERIES POSTS

find part 2 here

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