Bengfort.com

Today marks the very first time that I have worn a suit to a job interview. All my previous job interviews have been held at non-office locations like Starbucks, CCTV, hotel lobbies or for a Chinese company where I didn’t feel the need to put on a suit and jacket, so it was quite a novel experience wearing one for the first time.

Feeling spiffy and oh-so adult, I show up at the office, and am ushered to a conference room. I glance around at what people are wearing. Jeans and sweaters. Its amazing how awkward you can feel when you are not dressed for the occasion, but I figured I was still in the clear because I was an interviewee, and you have to look better than you would on a normal day at the office.

In comes my three interviewers. The main guy interviewing me is wearing glamorously distressed jeans and a pullover. He takes one look at me and says, “It’s casual Friday, so you’ll have to pardon us for looking like rubbish.”

The accent and phrasing was so clearly British (the company is also a British one, which I knew from the start) that I responded with, “Oh no, you still look very smart.” I thought that response was better than smiling and giving the impression that I agreed that he looked like rubbish.

Now my interviewer was rather young, and relatively good-looking (from an objective standpoint of course), and after I said that he paused for half a second with what I interpreted to be a “look,” before he kept going with introductions and continued with the interview.

In retrospect, I really hope I didn’t start off the interview with him thinking that I just hit on him. I know “smart” means good-looking, but I guess I thought I could use it interchangeably with “sharp,” which does not have an “I think you’re attractive” connotation.

Sometimes I mess up cultural meanings. I do this a lot in Chinese, but it has always worked in my favor rather than create an uncomfortable situation. For example, one of my Chinese friends asked if I wanted help with something. I didn’t want to bother her, so as a way of saying no, I said “I’m a bother to you” (wo mafan ni). Of course I had forgotten that in Chinese this was a way of getting help, as in “Could I bother you to do this…” and her reply of “Okay, I’ll help you” was exactly the opposite of what I was expecting.

So Jaci and Ben, maybe you can alleviate my concerns that I hit on my interviewer by calling him “smart.”