Spirit animal and super power

This post is off topic from my usual and infrequent writings here on our new products, what inspires us and our fun events. But this struck me today. I was looking at LinkedIn and saw people liking and commenting on a particular post I found interesting from a man I am not connected to. He is a high level marketing professional, in his 40s or 50s I presume. He has experience with some of the leading fast food and consumer products in the world. An interviewer asked him what his spirit animal and his super power would be. He did not understand why these questions would be asked and what they would even reveal. He did not know what a spirit animal is. The number of outraged, angry responders to this, calling the questions ridiculous, rude and dumb just really surprised me.

I think the question is very revealing and probably did what it was meant to do. If you're interviewing someone who will be working with brands that speak to younger people or are part of the pop culture world and the interviewee either doesn't know what those things are or is too taken off guard by the question to adapt, then this is candidate is not for you.

I'm 48, was in advertising and marketing for 20 years before starting my own businesses. I love that these are interview questions. I say yes to more personality! Yes to questions that are fun and interesting!

To answer the interview question, I think my answer on spirit animal would be: That depends. I love my Patronus, which is a white stag (I'm pretty psyched about that). I was called a bulldog often in the corporate world and I took that as a huge compliment, whether they meant it that way or not. I also found a lion speaks to me because of a meme about "being the storm" with a lion as the image.

My super power? I think this is going to sound evil (probably why I'm Slytherin) but getting people to do what I want. When I was in marketing, biggest challenge was to get the departments to work together so we could support successful campaigns and do things out of the norm. As a small business owner, it's getting in front of the buyers and properties. I'm thinking I could use my mind powers to make the buyers answer my emails and carry ALL OF OUR THINGS - mooooowahahahaha.

I guess I kind of wanted someone to ask me that question 😉

-Shelley