Times have change, and changed very much. Many things have also to change if only to keep pace and not to be left behind, whatever that would means. It seems that when it comes to job interviews an issue we have raised a few times it seems there isn’t much changed than it has been in earlier times.
Except for me facing three hostile looking gentlemen more decades back never did I find myself in a job interviewer seething that comes close to that. I mean it is not only about the organization in with the job vacancy but a lot of other things. Being prepared to join one body or another must demand lots of other things than those of decades’ back
This is the age of internet, the age of ChatGPT, the age of AI and what have you. Not that we’ve to be experts in all the stuff. But the very basic or AVCs basic these ChatGPT, Deepseek and all the stuff wouldn’t affect no one. It wouldn’t be taking the bread out of someone’s mouth. Some knowledge how the world is working these days will be keeping pace with changing times.
Recently I was having this conversation with someone whom I thought was very well read and also well informed. Somewhat we came to the point of the Middle East problem. At first things we kept it nicely as we didn’t any near to the meat of the whole thing. And all through one thing I noticed was that the fellow who as well-tutored as he was and as his reputation of being a well-read person wasn’t as well informed as he should have been.
Then we came to the situation in Gaza a very contentious issue which very sadly doesn’t seem be getting the attention it deserves. Look at all the stories, history and narratives of this Jeffery Epstein guy who they say was a convicted pedophile and one who destroyed the lives of many young girls even as young as fourteen years if what some reports claim is true. Gaza, as one commentator puts is now the world’s shame with, as many reports claim, all the killing of the youngest children women and the vulnerable going on. Really when it comes to that part of the world, almost everything defies logic and the most basic humane qualities.
Since the fellow was talking as if he held all the cards in his hand I had to ask him what he thought of what was going on in the place. He said something like “Oh it will end soon…” as if he had the info no one in the rest of the world seems to have! He sounded as if he was talking about a couple of guys whose testosterone levels seem to be dangerously overflowing and were showing it in some public bust up. I had to press him. “If you have been following global news the situation is so bad that many call it as barbarity as many are saying it was modern genocide and the world is doing nothing about it.” After all there was a lot of debate underway with the accusations of genocide getting louder while on the other side there are those who portray what is going on as legitimate. The guy has no idea! Anyway as we are in times when many organizations, at one time or another, talk of joining the international of business and trading superhighway at least staff should have the very basic info of what’s going on not only in neighboring regions but also across the oceans and seas.
Say the person is applying for a position of head of the information and public relations department or another. Forget asking the applicant that tired and worn out question as to why he/she chose that organization. That’s the one question you’d hear well-thought put and even choreographed answer which would put the interviewers at a loss of words. And also the applicants might raise a few points as to what is expected from the department they’re applying to head. Mind you this is an organization which has claimed of plans to take its business to the horn of African countries.
Ask them what they know about the neighboring countries and there is where the cheese is. Probably they know practically nothing of consequence.
Ask about the troubles in neighboring countries as all that goes over those places would directly impact the organization’s plans and attempts to break into the Horn’s business superhighway. Believe me the interviewers would probably turn out as a group of sorry interviewer with tens of thousands of ants racing all across their spines.
I mean keeping pace with what is happening in neighboring countries, the Middle East and even in the Russia/Ukraine war is about not being left in the dark as to how those world is working and how it’s also going off the tracks in more places than one. The fact is this world, maybe not in ways we would want it to, has become so closely intertwined what happens in the one part of the world directly or directly affects even those in the farthest corners. Look at what’s going in the USA and its ripple effects around the world. It’s no more a Republican/ Democrat showdown; it’s no more only about internal politics which some claim is getting uglier by the day; It’s not about the hundreds of conspiracy theories which does nothing to calm down things but worsen them; it’s not only about the name-calling and raw, difficult-to-hide air of hatred that probably would haunt that nation for a long time to come. It is about the whole world.
All those tariffs are about the whole world; all those folding up of activities of organizations like USAID is about the whole world; all the Big Beautiful Budget where the big cuts in foreign aid are treated is about the whole world; all the immigration, visa, citizenship and similar rules and regulations are about the whole world.
Believe me it’s high time we wake up to the reality of the times we’re if only not to be caught unawares when, God forbid, the worst happens. So, what happens in many parts of the world isn’t only about them, it’s also about us!
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 20, July 2025