Overlooked aspect in a candidate evaluation

This post won’t be about me. Instead, I will tell you about an older man and his everyday strivings. This man, from his youngest years, had been taught to care about things: everyday items and, in particular, tools. For him, there is no such thing as throwing away old things just because they are old. He knows that old things can be REPAIRED. What is the point of discarding something if it can be fixed?
So he owns a 45-year-old “Tarpan” truck (in very good shape) and also a “Fiat 125p”. He has other tools, machines, and motors that, thanks to his extraordinary technical talent, he just repairs if they are broken. This is his passion. That man has taught me everything and instilled in me the habit of looking after different things, especially tools.

This person is my 75-year-old father.

Every time I visit my family’s home, the visit is never just for leisure. There is always something to do. I help my parents either to fix something, buy a spare part on the Internet, or rebuild something. I do my best to make their work easier, or just make it for them.
One of the machines my father’s still using is also a 45-year-old Czech production walk-behind mini-tractor, the “MF-70”, visible in the image below.


There are many compatible add-ons for grass mowing for this machine. Usually, I manage to find spare parts for these. Unfortunately, two months ago, it turned out that a crucial element inside the engine is no longer manufactured. Even if it were produced, I would add additional work for my father to replace the element when I bought it.
So I decided to act another way. I have just gave him a brand-new compact tractor with all the necessary grass-mowing accessories. It’s easier to operate, doesn’t break every two months, and, what’s most important, is much lighter. This allowed my father, at least for a while, to stop worrying about the defect. There will be a better time for the engine renovation, for instance, in the winter when there is not as much work in the garden as there is now.


I decided to buy a new mower at a difficult time for me: currently I am unemployed and I can use only my savings. It is also difficult for me to predict how long it will take before I find a new job. I took a risk; new equipment of this type costs a really huge amount of money, but I have a feeling that it was the right decision.

I don’t write the story to use it as an argument during an interview I will participate in. I just want to point out this part of me as a candidate: my motivation, which lies under those risky decisions I am able to make. Through this publication, I also want to show that, in the whole positive sense of the word, I had the opportunity to “learn from the best”. I can care for tools, but in the first place, - care for people.

Could I use that story as an example of the “STAR” method during an interview for a QA Engineer position? Maybe. The problem is that I can’t do that. I do not want to put it around, brag about how much I help and support others in very mundane, physical work. On the other hand, that is me as a person, and it could make a difference during a selection process. The story could reflect how I would act as an employee.

In one of the companies I worked for, there was an initiative called “Business Social Responsibility”. The main concerns of this concept were, of course, energy savings, waste sorting, riding a bike to work, and these kinds of ideas. All these are important, feasible, and, in some sense, catchy. We have to take care of the environment. Society, however, is something a bit different for me. Society means people. And I am socially involved just in that way.

If you think it’s worth helping me with this, all you have to do is give me a chance to get a new job.

For those who have been reading the article up to this point, I have a little bonus: a photo of one of the kittens that were born in the attic of my family home this spring. The cats were fed by my parents.