The sargents interview

The sargent's interview

The sargent's interview is conducted as an informal, fatherly chat, which helps to relax he applicants and bring them out of their shells. Interviewing sergents are posted to the careers office for two years. They are usally carefully chosen by their regiments because they are bright enthusiastic NCOs and are likely to capture the imagaination of casual caller. The sergent skilfuly prises answers from unsespecting applicants and withing ten minutes will have weight them up and know whether they are likely to last training.

'Interviewing is not a skill you learn or can be taught, it takes time and experiance,' said one sergent. 'you get a feeling about the person by the way they avoid your stare or fidget and twitch. Addmittedly we all get nervouse at interviews, some people can handle it and some can't; it's the ones that appear the most confident we are looking for.' This view is comfirmed by other recruiting staff who go further in asserting that if applicants are very nervous, they are less likely to settle into a disciplined life and will find it much harder to gain the confidence needed to sirvive.

The sargent,s interview is the last chance to ensure that all paper work has been completed and all the loose ends tied up. Personal infomation is comfirmed and double checked,including possible debts something that increasingly rules out many married men. There are accecptable limits; the rule of thumb is that the debt must be payable before the commecement of training,because most of the recruits receive only pocket money to buy essential items. Normally anything under £500 is fine but, anything over is considered unacceptable. Married applicants with morgages are considered on theire individual merits, but unless theire parteners are working there is little hope. If the partener is working,however, the queation is often raised as to weather hey are prepared to give up that employment and to move overseas,to places like northern ireland or cyprus, with no guarantee of work. If the partener is prepared to move, the applicant is bafk facing the question of financing the morgage repayments during training; it is a vicious circle.with few options for breaking it.