Interviews ...Aaaaagh! UPDATE! I GOT THE JOB!!!!!

olias · 26 March 2010 at 4:02PM

Ok, so this is more of a rant than anything else!

Just had a telephone interview. I found it really difficult with not having eye contact or being able to observe body language, not knowing if silences are due to the interviewer pausing whilst writing something down or whether they are waiting for me to speak or expand on what I have just said. Also pauses of a few seconds whilst you gather your thoughts or consider an answer are fine in a face to face interview, but over the telephone they seem to stretch out forever.

The other thing which I have real difficulty with is the sort of questions that go something like this...

'Can you describe a specific incident including times, dates location, longditude and latitude and inside leg measurement where you used used your skills and experience in management, timekeeping, presentation skills and dealing with confrontation to resolve an issue with an unhelpful colleague over management strategy and corporate targetting whilst riding a unicycle, juggling and using microsoft office applications to ensure a meaningful dialogue is maintained'.

I just feel like saying, 'eh? You what? Whats that got to do with stacking shelves at Tesco? (or whatever menial job the employer has deemed fit to call me to interview for).

I seem to get questions like this at all interviews these days. Is this a new thing? What happened to asking questions in plain english pertaining to the role you are actually applying for?

I HATE interviews.

Olias

loisa · 26 March 2010 at 5:14PM

I hate competancy based interviews. They only test your memory recall skills and if you've never been in that situation at work then your stuffed or you can embarrass yourself further by trying to make a tenuous link some out of work example as the experts suggest.

I had another interview which was almost as bad. "What would you do in xxx situation?" Oh great I thought, can just use common sense here. It was just as difficult though because the scenarios were very detailed even though the job ad said experience was not necessary.
If I found myself in xxx situation I would expect to have already received a full induction and training on the companies policies and procedures for dealing with xxx situation!!!