Corporate Courtship

Interviewing for a job is exactly like dating. And not the movie meet-cute you’re picturing. I mean modern dating. App-algorithm dating. The kind where you match with someone who calls himself “a traveler,” but what he really means is he once ate something with chimichurri and now considers himself worldly.

You finish the interview and call your best friend.

“So, I think we really connected,” you say, already imagining what your future work self will look like in this role. You replay the moment when the hiring manager laughed at your joke about cross-departmental synergy. You felt it. There was real chemistry.

Turns out, they didn’t feel the same way.

Because two days later, the stale email arrives:

“Thank you for your time, but we have decided to move forward with another candidate.”

Which translates to: We’re just not that into you.

And suddenly, you’re catapulted straight back into waiting for a man who is, objectively, mid-tier at best, to text you back after what you thought was an excellent dinner date. You’re pacing. You’re rereading the text chain like it contains some kind of encrypted prophecy. You even start negotiating with the universe.

If he texts, I will stop eating chocolate for the rest of the month.

Clearly a lie.

And let’s talk about the questions. My favorite:

“What is your superpower?”

Sir. I cannot fly. I cannot teleport. I cannot see the future, which is clearly evidenced by the fact that I did not foresee you asking me this ridiculous question for the fifteenth time this month.

Let me tell you what my superpower is not.
This. Interviewing.

If I had a superpower, it would be the ability to maintain eye contact while my internal monologue is screaming: Why did I say “absolutely” like that? Did I spit while I was talking? Why did my voice suddenly drop? Why am I still speaking? Nicole, stop talking.

And yet, every time, I convince myself:

This one is different.
We have something.
I saw them nod with what I swear was tenderness. Actual office-mate behavior.

And still, I show up.
Hair coiffed.
Lips painted.
Blazer steamed.
Heart open.
Just like dating, minus the suit.

Because, for reasons I can’t fully explain, I carry around this bottomless, wildly persistent well of hope that…

One day, a person or a company is going to say:
Oh. Her. Yes. That one.
We choose her!

And until then, I will continue to bravely, courageously, heroically poke fun at myself and the process, while reapplying my lipstick, taking three deep breaths, sometimes even striking a Superwoman pose, and then hitting “Join Meeting” or walking into that bar.