The Bachelor versus The Applicant

I’ve unashamedly said on many occasions before that one of my guilty pleasures is trashy reality television. Survivor, Amazing Race, The Apprentice – I’m hooked.

My current outlet from reality through reality television is The Bachelorette. For those of you with far more varied and interesting lives than I (who haven’t watched this show) it’s one bachelorette with a whole bunch of potential suitors. Each week the bachelorette eliminates men until at the end (after the grand sum of around eight weeks), she’s left with someone who, in most cases, proposes marriage. Not surprisingly the success rate from this show, in terms of relationship longevity, isn’t great.

What I’ve always found so fascinating is that there’s only ever one star of the show – the Bachelor or Bachelorette – and yet almost all the people brought in to “date” this person seem to fall head over heels in love. Unrealistic? Absolutely.

My theory is that people are instinctively competitive and want to “win” the show and in competing, they manufacture emotions that perhaps aren’t as strong as they would be if they’d just met the bachelorette at a club one night. That or people out and out lie about their feelings to stay on the show for longer.

It reminds me, in some ways, of a heated job interview; 20 candidates vying for one job at a company. In most cases the employer does the interviewing. They ask the questions. They decide whether the employee is right for them.

To me, a longer lasting relationship might be gained if the employee (respectfully) does some interviewing of their own to find out if they feel the company is also right for them.

An employee/employer relationship is similar in so many ways to a romantic relationship (albeit a bit of a twisted one!). Is it realistic to expect that you’ll find job-love if you don’t do your homework as well?

Kirsty Dunphey is the youngest ever Australian Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year, author of two books (her latest release is Retired at 27, If I Can do it Anyone Can) and a passionate entrepreneur who started her first business at age 15 and opened her own real estate agency at 21. Now Kirsty does lots of fun things which you can read about here. Her favourite current projects are Elephant Property, a boutique property management agency, Baby Teresa, a baby clothing line that donates an outfit to a baby in need for each one they sell andReallySold, which helps real estate agents stop writing boring, uninteresting ads.