Does anyone else's brain leave home at job interviews?

freakyogre

This has really cheered me up as I get so nervous in interviews, but have never mentioned carrots!

I had one interview last year for a job I didn't really want (I know I shouldn't say that) and pretty much knew it was a no when I commented that I liked the shoes of the lady who was interviewing me. To be fair, they were really nice shoes!

WeakHeart

Eliza you are so not on your own! Agree with Ebeneezer you have a great sense of humour.

The notes should help, not a script but just a few prompt words that would get you going if you get a blank moment, if I was interviewing it certainly wouldn't put me off. Another tip I was once given is to remember the first sentence of the answer you want to give to likely questions like 'so tell me a bit about yourself' or 'what do you know about us'.

My worst interview was when I wanted the job so much I went overkill, too enthusiastic, asked far too many questions. I remember the interviewer looking at me like I was really scaring her. Didn't get the job.

teabelly

I find it easier just to say my mind has gone blank if it does and it'll be back in a minute! Also if you find yourself waffling on then stop and apologise then start again but me more succint the next time. Interviewers are used to people having nerves.

I always work on the principle if you fluff the interview up then you secretly didn't really want the job anyway...

If you do get really bad then valerian or kalms about a half hour before should calm you down enough to reduce the runaway mouth effect.

perplexed.com

thepedestrian wrote: »

The second worse interview I ever acheived - to cut a moderatley long story short ,my windscreen of the car shattered just before I got there ,so had to punch a hole thru to see where I was going

- as this was onl about 300 yards away from their office I didnt think it was to bad - but when I drove onto the car park I just HAD TO park in front of the window where the interviewers were and they were all looking strangely at me -turning up bang on time but looking out thru a hole in a shattered windscreen

I went into the office suite brushing a few more crystals of glass from my hair and knocked at the door where I had seen them from outside

a little while later " come in !" I went in - there were two men standing and one woman at a large desk and I announced "Hello there I`m Samantha Roberts ( not my real name ) and Im here for the 3.20 pm appointment with you!"

they looked at each other back and forth and then one of the men said " thats not until NEXT week "
it was silent for what seemed like quite a while , then I could hear myself saying from a distance " Oh - OK then - thanks !" and backed out the door whilst shutting it

I made it back to my car with the peephole thru the shattered windscreen and slowly reversed out - looking at them looking at me thru the hole


I never went back

I hope you don't think I'm cruel but that's the best laugh I've had in a while :rotfl:

WeakHeart

One bloke in an interview explained his lack of ability to answer the question by saying 'Inside my head is like the Houses of Parliament. On one side is labour that thinks one thing and on the other is the conservatives who think another and they are arguing about what is right'. I actually thought he gave a pretty clever analogy about what it feels like to be interviewed but the recruiter didn't share that view!

wontfallforit

I've had some awful interviews. Thankfully, I've had few face to face interviews (and have usually been offered the job), but I've had some real stinking bad phone interviews. I hate them.

I used to work in a call centre, so now I'm not so bad at phone interviews (though not great!), but I've had some awful experiences. Nothing springs to mind specifically, but I've always suffered from 'blank mind syndrome'.

Also, whilst I worked in the call centre I mentioned above, I also dropped some real clangers when talking with customers. Saying "ah, that's fantastic" when someone informed me that their baby had just died probably tops the lot (in my defence, the phone line quality was terrible, and I managed to hear that the customer had just had a baby).

loisa

I had a bad interview recently. Don't think I really embarrassed myself too much but it went on until quite late in the evening and I was one of the last to get called out of a huge group. I know it sounds terrible but I just found it so difficult to stay focused and sound enthusiastic for all that time. I really struggled to get my words out which isn't normally a problem I have in interviews. On the other hand, I've had interviews that I thought went really well and still not got the job...

mqandy

Usually I think I even Enjoy interviews, I come across far better in person than on paper!

However, I once drove 200 miles to an interview, turned up late, only to have realise halfway through that this was for a different vacancy than I had in mind, and I had no idea what this company did, nor what they wanted from me!

Gleeful

I had an interview for a temp admin job while at Uni. They explained the job would involve a lot of filing and asked what skills I had to do this task. I said....wait for it.....

'I'm really good at the alphabet so I know where to put things'

Didn't get the job, surprisingly.

But yes, it happens to us all!

SnowyOwl_2

These replies are really funny. I stick my foot in my gob at interviews too...when I manage to get an interview that is... I have been the interviewer on hundreds of occasions as I am a HR person, and in theory know how to conduct an interview. It's not so easy when you're the one in the spotlight and there are 15 other interviewees.

OP you do need a bit of practical help! Get yourself relaxed and think back on the interviews that you have attended and write down all the questions you remember being asked. Some will be very specific to that job or that company, but they will give you an idea of the sorts of themes that are likely to come up in other interviews.

When you get a job description go through it carefully and with your list of interview questions in mind ask yourself what sort of questions you'd be asking someone who had applied for this role. Write them all out, then write out all the answers you can possibly think of, and do a bit of research for the ones you're not sure how to answer.

Add on a list of questions that will probably come up - things like Why did you leave that job? Where do you see yourself in five years? (though that is the stupidest question ever some twerp will ask it at some point)? Why did you apply for this job? What do you know about this company?

It's also a good idea to have a few intelligent questions pre-prepared for the end of the interview. Good ones are "what is the training policy here?" "what will I be doing in my first week in the job?" "what mechanism is there for checking that I am performing well in the job?" (Be careful that they haven't already covered the answers to your questions during the interview though.)

Finally get a friend and do a role play. Tell them to be strict with you and that they are not to laugh or make fun. Practice really really helps and role playing will give you lots of confidence, especially when they ask questions you'd thought of earlier.