When I hear the word ‘Spiela’ I instantly think ‘Social collaborative network that connects people to jobs, opportunities and influencers to give everyone the platform to show what the world what they can do’ – but if you had asked me on December 22nd 2017 the answer you would have got from me would have been “It’s German for speech or something like that…”

Now the reason I mention it date specific is because that is the day I first found out about Spiela…and may also give you hope that if you ever do feel that you have made a bad first impression to have faith in the person you gave it to, to see that you were nervous, it wasn't you etc and that they will see the real you...

Friday, December 22nd 2017 was the last working day for most people before Christmas Day on the Monday – and me being me, was out on the town, but this time I was meeting my school mates from early 1990’s…yes I am kind of-sort-of-old-ish! Haha. Anyway, we hadn’t seen each other for a while so in the midst of catching up on marriage, kids, careers, life and more importantly – football, there was A LOT of drinking involved…don’t think bad of me, Christmas time is actually referred to in some quarters as ‘Silly Season’ ???? So it’s rude not too…

So quite late into the night, one of my friends (who by the way no matter how much alcohol he has consumed, is always thinking about business) approached me and said with slurred speech;

“Ruben, you work in Marketing right?” “Yep” I replied back in equally slurred speech “Wicked, well I have this really good of friend of mine called Ivan who has started up a business and is looking for some marketing advice/consultation – would you mind if I gave him your number so he can call you over the Christmas break to go over in more detail” “Yes mate – that’s fine. Now enough about business, let’s go to the bar and drink the bar dry of Tequilla” – Ok I’m not completely sure if the second part of that sentence is true, but for story telling purposes lets say it is. Haha.

So we carry on the night…then all of a sudden said ‘Business minded’ fried hands me his phone saying “I called Ivan for you…have a chat to him” – As you can imagine I am a bit taken aback – first of all I can barely talk sentences, secondly I’m thinking this is basically a job interview. So I take the phone off my friend and proceed to speak, and I’m not going to lie I cannot remember that conversation for the life of me.

Come the next morning, I wake up a bit worse for wear thinking that I must have made the worst impression last night and that I’ve pretty much blown any chance of working with Ivan – first impressions ey? But the funny thing is that even though first impressions are important, they are not the be all of end all. Fortunately, Ivan reached out to me a few days later, we had a chat in more professional circumstances and the rest is history. He did tell me that he found our conversation funny on that Friday night…to this day he will not tell me what I said though. Haha.

The moral of the story is even when you think that you’ve messed, it’s never over till it’s over and you must not give up. Now I’m not condoning having an interview after consuming half of Russia’s supply of Vodka but just to relax whenever making a first impression and don’t worry too much if it doesn’t go plan at first.