He saw himself not as a candidate, but as a character in a show. He imagined the yellow subtitles crawling at the bottom of the screen, translating his panic into neat, white text.

He was about to speak when his gaze drifted to the corner of the room. A small, dusty monitor hung on the wall, left over from a forgotten video conference system. On its screen, a tiny watermark was permanently burned into the corner: Interview Viesub – Kênh tuyển dụng hàng đầu.

He walked in. Three faces behind a long mahogany table. The middle one, a woman with sharp glasses and sharper silence, was the head of the department. She gestured to a single chair in the center of the room. It felt like a stage.