My hardest job interview was a walk in the park

Jennifer Michelmann
2 min readDec 4, 2020

What was your weirdest job interview? I’ll tell you mine: My daughter was about two years old back then. I was supposed to have a telephone interview with a company I found quite interesting.

I had a doctor’s appointment with my daughter right afterwards, so I had it all figured out: She was usually taking a nap at that time, I would push the stroller through the park while doing the interview, and then planned some buffer time to get to the doctor.

I thought it would be a quick call to get to know each other. It turned out to be a 45 minute interview with the CEO. I didn’t want him to know right away that I had a kid to not minimize my chances. I only had one problem: My daughter wouldn’t sleep.

At first, I tried to keep her busy with snacks. When that didn’t work out anymore, I took her out of the stroller. That probably wasn’t the smartest move, but I was running out of snacks. I then answered questions about my CV and past job experience while chasing a two-year-old through the park.

When it came to discussing my analytical skills, my daughter decided to take her shoes off because she wanted to take a dip in the pond. I managed to direct her away from the water while answering questions about Google Analytics and business metrics.

I couldn’t put her shoes back on, so now I was following my barefooted daughter through the park while pushing the stroller, holding the phone and discussing my strengths and weaknesses. The only reason I did so well was because I had several phone interviews before and could basically do it on auto-pilot.

By the end of the call, I had an invite to a personal meeting later that week where I was offered a job. I was a bit out of breath, but we made it to the doctor in time. When we arrived, my daughter had fallen asleep in the stroller, all happy and exhausted from her little adventure in the park.

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Jennifer Michelmann

Product manager since 2012. Juggling kids, job and a very demanding cat. Based in Hamburg, Germany.