The Literary Scholar
(By ABS, who believes HR managers fear soliloquies more than salary negotiations.)
“To be, or not to be…”
That’s how he’d answer the first question. No “Good morning,” no handshake. Just a philosophical existential dilemma right out of the gate. And right then, HR silently underlines in red: not a team player.
Let’s be honest. If Prince Hamlet were to walk into a modern job interview—with his brooding energy, spectral baggage, and a flair for poetic procrastination—he wouldn’t make it past Round One.
And it’s not because he’s unintelligent. Far from it. He’s got the IQ of a chess grandmaster and the vocabulary of a walking thesaurus. But what he lacks is everything LinkedIn worships: clarity, confidence, a five-year plan, and the ability to answer a question in under fifteen minutes.
Let’s take a hypothetical tour.
The Arrival: Fashionably Late & Eternally Melancholic
The receptionist asks for his ID. He offers a skull.
The HR assistant, unnerved, guides him to the waiting area. Hamlet declines coffee, mutters something about the “rottenness in the state of Denmark”, and glares at the motivational poster that says “Today is a great day to shine!”
He sighs. “Not for me.”
Strike one: Morale deflator.
The Resume: Impressive Yet Vague
His CV is titled “What a piece of work is man.”
Education: Wittenberg University (Left mid-term, unexplained leave).
Experience: Prince of Denmark (demoted by circumstances).
Skills: Swordsmanship, Monologue Delivery, Ghost Whispering.
Achievements: Avenged father, exposed regicide, died tragically.
The HR manager stares.
“This… is poetic. But what exactly did you do for five years?”
“I thought.”
“About?”
“Life. Death. My mother. My uncle. Whether action has meaning. Whether conscience makes cowards of us all.”
“Okay, but have you handled Excel sheets?”
“Alas, poor Excel…”
Strike two: Not task-oriented.
The Interview: A Monologue in Disguise
Q: “Tell us about a time you faced a challenge.”
Hamlet:
“Well… my father was murdered by my uncle, who then married my mother. I contemplated revenge while battling existential guilt, feigned madness to confuse everyone including myself, accidentally killed a man behind a curtain, orchestrated the deaths of two former friends, returned from a pirate attack, staged a play to provoke confession, dug up a jester’s skull, and finally fenced my nemesis before dying in my mother’s arms.”
“…Any challenge in a team setting?”
Hamlet: “I do not trust teams. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern taught me that.”
Strike three: Lacks collaborative spirit.
Soft Skills Evaluation:
-
Emotional Intelligence?
Swings from wit to weeping. Not ideal for client calls. -
Leadership Qualities?
Spends more time talking to himself than leading others. His followers either die, go mad, or disappear without explanation. -
Crisis Management?
Let’s just say “murdered Polonius behind a tapestry” wasn’t the best escalation strategy. -
Time Management?
Took five acts to do what could’ve been handled in a Shakespearean prologue.
References: Not Reachable
His father? A ghost.
His mother? Deceased.
Ophelia? Tragically drowned.
Horatio? Might give a good review, but has PTSD.
Laertes? Might show up with a poisoned resume.
Not a great pool to draw from.
Cultural Fit: Misfit
Imagine him at a corporate Diwali party.
While others click selfies, Hamlet’s in a corner murmuring about life’s futility and how man’s finest ambition is but dust. He might recite a sonnet to the samosas. He will definitely question why the lights are so bright when the world is so dark.
As a team member, he’d ghost the WhatsApp group, leave meetings halfway, and stare out the window in the middle of a budget discussion.
“Why does this pie chart remind me of mortality?” he’d ask.
HR would gently suggest therapy. He’d quote Freud, dismiss the idea, and go back to contemplating fate.
Offer Letter: Rejected (by Both Parties)
Even if—by some miracle—they made him an offer, Hamlet would likely decline.
He’d say something like:
“What is this contract but parchment inked with impermanence? What is a salary if not the price of my soul?”
He would leave the office pondering whether the job was real or a shadow of ambition, and whether action has meaning in a world ruled by chance.
They’d send a polite rejection anyway.
Subject line: Thank you for your time.
Attachment: Feedback for Self-Reflection (not that he needs encouragement).
Postscript: In Defense of the Prince
But let’s not be too harsh. Hamlet is brilliant. He’s introspective. He asks the big questions in a world that prefers small talk.
He wouldn’t survive in a KPI-driven, Slack-notified, coffee-fueled corporate jungle. But he might have thrived in a philosophy department, a poetry retreat, or a think tank (with padded walls).
He is, after all, the patron saint of overthinkers and the tragic mascot of the “read more into it” generation.
Hamlet doesn’t fail interviews.
He dismantles them.
He doesn’t answer questions.
He interrogates reality.
He doesn’t seek jobs.
He seeks truth.
So while the world scrolls through résumés, Hamlet rewrites the script—quill in one hand, skull in the other, and a storm always looming somewhere inside.
Would you hire him?
Or would you, too, sigh deeply and say:
“Something is rotten in the state of recruitment.”
By ABS
The Literary Scholar
(Where even tragic princes get performance reviews.)
They deconstructed a prince, exposed the paralysis of thought, and found absurdity in the eloquence of indecision. Between delay and drama, they whispered: “Even hesitation has a heartbeat.”
Signed,
The Literary Scholar
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