Throw the dice and pick a card. It says 'interview for a high profile job'. Let us say you are an experienced arts administrator, in touch with your field and region, and that a post comes up for a regional manager of a well known arts development agency which you've always known about, and which has been expanding of late from its London base.
You send off your application, and get an interview... At the interview it seems that they are uninterested or at least surprised by your vision for outreach in the relevant artform, given in the presentation which you have prepared. You don't get the job, although they claim to be impressed by the work you already do and have done, and also that they didn't choose you because they have a 'brand' and needed someone who would fit their specific 'strategy'.
You then meet up with another artist who has experience relevant to the job - of programming this time - who also went for it. Four people gained an interview, and as two of them, you swap stories. He too felt that he delivered his presentation well, that they weren't however interested in his special talents or his own experience, but that they wanted someone who would fit their 'brand'. (Leaving aside the question of whether an arts development agency with charitable status should really be ignoring regional distinctiveness in favour of a metropolitan brand...)
A few days later, their website (which has remained static for some years, as well as London based) suddenly has new pages for each region. You look at the region for which you applied. The page seems very familiar...those weren't some of the points and the spiel you made in your presentation were they...????! Miss three moves.
