The Big Day
I had an interview this afternoon. I run a business with my husband (you remember, the one that walked out of the marriage back in February). This is severely career-limiting, as you can imagine, so I need to find some sort of gainful employment. I need a job. I’ve applied for quite a few, heard back from a couple, but this was the first interview.
There were three parts – a one-to-one interview, a presentation, and a group interview where we had to discuss something while the interviewers watched. It’s been a while since I last had an interview – 2004, I think. And that was just a straight-forward firing-squad style (4-5 people asking questions, always hard to know where to look).
First up was the 1 to 1 interview. Very pleasant woman doing the interview, and it turned out she would be my boss if I was successful. The work sounded really interesting, and I felt like I’d said the right things. I wasn’t fazed by the presentation part of it – standing up and talking in front of a group doesn’t fill me with dread!! They laughed in all the right places, and I felt that had gone well too. Who knows?? Who can tell??
I’d never done a group session before. It felt very artificial, and as I didn’t know exactly what it was that the ‘interviewer’ was looking for, it’s hard to know if I did what they wanted. But – I felt I’d done OK. I didn’t dominate the conversation (unlike one candidate), I didn’t sit and say nothing (unlike another one), I didn’t talk over the top of anyone, I stated my case clearly, agreed with others when I genuinely agreed with them, and disagreed when I genuinely disagreed (but in a civilised, polite way).
All in all, I feel OK about it all – I’m certainly not sitting here wishing I’d said something different!! And for me, that means that I’ll be happy enough, even if I don’t get the job. If I’ve done the best I can, and they still don’t want me, then I’m obviously not the right person for the job, and the job is obviously not the right one for me. And so we move on.
As we left we were told we would be informed one way or the other within 48 hours – so I’ll know one way or the other by mid-afternoon the day after tomorrow.
Watch this space…
Two Days Later
I reckon the 48 hours was up at about 3:00 this afternoon. It’s now 6pm. No news is bad news as far as job interviews are concerned. So – let’s assume that’s that and move on. Shame – it would have been interesting work. It would be nice to know for sure one way or the other, but I know that doesn’t always happen. And if I’m not what they’re looking for, I would like to know who is looking for someone like me!
The Day After That
I was in a meeting in my volunteering role this morning and told them that I didn’t think I’d got the job. Everyone said all the right things. And then one of the guys said, ‘Ring them! What’s the worst that can happen? Ring them. It shows you’re keen, you’ll at least know for sure – and they might give you some clues as to why you didn’t get it, which could be useful in future interviews.’ It made perfect sense. So this afternoon – I rang them.
I got through to the person who’d interviewed me – and she told me that they were still interviewing, and no decision would be made until the early part of next week!! She promised to ring me one way or the other as soon as a decision had been made.
There’s still hope!!!
Once I know for sure one way or the other, you lovely people out in Blogland will be the first to hear about it!
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