The joys of jobhunting

Today I had the interview (flowerily termed an "assessment centre") for the company I mentioned previously. Thought it went quite well, although the other applicants were scarily good.

Actually, it was the most challenging interview process that I've had yet - and I thoroughly enjoyed it. First there was a test. I'd assumed it'd be a standardised test. Boy was I wrong. They asked us everything from complex actuarial case studies, through our thoughts on the company and role, to translating random Esperanto phrases (based on their homologies with other languages - we weren't expected to speak Esperanto).

Another stage was to produce and perform a ten-minute presentation on any subject. Now, being a skeptic by trade, I figured there might be a way to leverage my wasted time online here. I ended up doing my presentation on "Cranks and how to spot them". There was one restriction I had to deal with, though - I didn't know how my interviewers felt about any of the cranks I was planning to dissect, so I was forced to stick to marginal stuff like astrology, dowsing and the Hoxsey treatment. In particular, I felt unable to risk going after the big guns of Creationism. I thought there'd be too high a chance of my interviewers turning out to be Hovind devotees.

Or at least I did until 30 minutes into the test, when I turned a page to see the question:

Describe how evolution operates by natural selection.

I WANT THIS JOB DAMMIT!!!