By Karolina Kezdi

Prove why I should work for you

More than 20 years ago, the psychologist Arthur Aron succeeded in making two strangers fall in love in his laboratory. A heterosexual man and woman enter the lab through separate doors. They sit face to face and answer a series of increasingly personal questions. Then they stare silently into each other’s eyes for four minutes. The most tantalizing detail: Six months later, the two participants were married. They invited the entire lab to the ceremony.

We have ‘work wives’ and ‘work husbands’,  and I think it’s a correct expression. We will spend more time with them than our other partners. We’ll support them, argue with them, make up with them, be a shoulder for them to cry on. And it’s a relationship that massively determines our effectiveness and success in the agency environment. 

So I created a version of Aron’s 36 questions, to help creatives ‘fall in love’ with their partner and know them at a deeper level. 

It’s also useful to use them with a potential creative director. Choosing an agency is a big deal and you need to interview them as much as they interview you: to make sure they’re better than any other offer and you want to work with them.

1. When was the last time you were proud of yourself?
2. How do you measure success?
3. Who is your biggest critic?
4. Do you believe in consequences?
5. What can I learn from you?
6. How does pressure affect your work?
7. Do you often change your mind about people?
8. If you could know only one thing from the future, what would it be?
9. How would you describe a good leader?
10. What’s the question you’re most frequently asked?
11. What skills do you value the most?
12. When do you ask for help?
13. Whose groupie would you be?
14. What’s your first thought after winning?
15. Why are you indispensable?
16. What is your favourite part of your work?
17. Why should I look up to you?
18. Do you think we need luck in life?
19. What’s your policy for sharing something on social media?
20. What will you bring into my life?
21. What would your grandma say to describe your career?
22. What is your must-have on your desk?
23. How do you decide when you should delegate?
24. How do you motivate yourself?
25. How patient are you?
26. What was your biggest sacrifice for a job?
27. What is your biggest regret?
28. What was your biggest fuck up?
29. What do you do after a huge fail?
30. Please finish the sentence: ‘Rules are for…’
31. Every problem is a/an … 
32. How important is it to get permission before you do something?
33. Are you a perfectionist?
34. What question drives you crazy?
35. What is your most useful advice?
36. What’s next?

So why not ask that important person in your life if they’re free for a rock concert and scream the answers at each other? Or take them to a private shady place and spend the evening wandering through each other’s psyches.