Sorry, out of touch and town and just found out about this unique interviewing process that Theo Epstein is using to find a new Cubs manager.
I guess you'd call it an "action interview", because Theo is simulating game situations and asking the candidate what he'd do.
It creates pressure, I guess, and you wouldn't be able to fake any knowledge in this instance, right?
Man,I hope it works.
I tried to imagine if I actually got to witness the interviews, but couldn't help adding a Cubs slant...
When I first was trying to break into advertising, I had an "action interview" at Leo Burnett.
Found out later it was for a promotional post (I didn't know jack about ad promotions or anything, really).
These two creative directors in really expensive, cool clothing go, "We've got a lunch, and no time to talk or look at your stuff."
Crap.
Then they say: "We're going to give you an assignment and you have to have it figured out by the time we get back."
(I swear, by the way, that everything in this story is true.)
They say, "A company that sells canned vegetables wants to give out a free Rubik's Cube to anyone who sends in the labels from all 6 different types of vegetables they sell. The Rubik's Cube, instead of different colors, has the different labels."
One of them draws a crude Rubik's Cube with little corn labels on one side, and green beans labels on the next...
"Get it?"
I say, "Sure."
"Okay" they say, "sit in this cubicle and we'll be back in an hour. SELL SOME VEGETABLES!"
It had just turned noon, I'm sitting at a desk in a cubicle in a real Ad Agency!
I'm so excited I could spit.
Suddenly from the other side of the cubicle, I hear a bag unwrapping and drinks being put on a desk and a woman's voice say something like, "You went out with Craig? Tell me EVERYTHING!"
And the other woman replied something that was so immediately obscene, I went into shock instead of simply raising my head above the cubicle's wall and saying, "Hi. Probably nobody sits in this cubicle, which is why you're talking as if you're in private. But I'm sitting here..."
But I didn't.
Instead, I listened to a lunch-worth of really intimate sex stuff that was so filthy yet told in such a casual manner that my poor young just-out-of-college ears went all red.
And of course, it was awesome.
Suddenly, it was ten til one, and I hadn't even written a thing.
Honestly, I can't even remember what I wrote down, but later I got offered a job.
Same thing's gonna happen to the next Cub manager.
(btw - still on production and didnt' have time to draw, thus the logo-like gif above.)
