Interviews- needing help with.

Spendless

bristol_pilot wrote: »

Get to know someone from the organisation in question.

Ironically I did in the last one. She is one of the mums at my kids school, but I had to e-mail the application form back to her and I didn't feel it appropriate to ask her. She turned out to be one of the interviewers (though I didn't know that till the day).

In practical terms that's just about impossible to do.I live in a large town so it's not a 'everyone knows everyone' affair. The job I submitted today is for the YMCA, I don't know anyone who uses it let alone works there, but my ESO rang me to tell me about the job, I read the advert thought yes I meet that criteria and applied..IAm beginning to think I'm wasting my time.:(

bristol_pilot

It is certainly ironic...that the effect of councils introducing this system - in an attempt to be uber-fair - is that it is 'who you know', far more so than in the private sector.

Spendless

newlywed wrote: »

The one I've got coming up is a housing association. There's 3 interviewing me (I have been warned, thanks).

The other private sector companies I've been too don't seem to do this, but the recruitment agencies seem to think CBI interview is the all new way to interview and they imply that everyone does it (thats the whole give strengths, give real examples etc) thing.

I don't enjoy interviews anyway so I'm not looking forward to this one at all - just hoping I get the job from the interview the day before as it's closer for one thing, then I can just go out of interest to check the post out and not worry!

I didn't even know they had a name. At least now I can google CBI interviews to see if I can work on anything. I think I' going to talk to my ESO about finding a job quickly in the private sector instead- so I can avoid this type of interview!

PasturesNew

Spendless wrote: »

6. What particularly initiatives would you take personally to promote good working relationships?

No idea what the answer to that one would be, but if I didn't fall off my chair at the interview I'd probably say "I'd bake cakes for Fridays"

Does anybody have a clue what it means, what a right answer would be?

Savvy_Sue

Nope, no idea either, depends on the working environment really.

In one job I did make a point of asking for the names of the team I'd be supervising before I started, so I could get them all fixed in my head. So making sure I knew everyone's name and what they did and where their role fitted in the overall 'plan' would be a priority - but I'd regard it as part of the managers' jobs to make sure that was happening!

PasturesNew

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Nope, no idea either, depends on the working environment really.

I've noticed that they don't even tell you what the job covers.... I actually had a full interview a couple of months back where they never mentioned the job, or how it was done, or how many people they had, or what they did. Just asked me a bunch of these daft questions and that was it.

As for 'working environment', I've never ever seen 'where I'd be working' until the actuall morning I started work for them and turned up.

It's all most peculiar these days .... it's all trick questions and secret right answers. I fail at that

Bl00dy good at what I do, but nobody will ever benefit from that as I don't do that fluffy stuff.

It's a good job I'm not really looking for work at the moment, but simply randomly applying for a few things of interest 'in case' they turned out to be well paid jobs of my dreams and I got an interview/appointed.

I'lll always be the candidate that came second: "Fantastic knowledge and experience ... but gave some odd answers to our fluffy questions, so we picked the clone"

Savvy_Sue

Oh, I'd always want to see where I was actually going to be working these days, following an interview in the manager's office - large, airy, classical lines - and not being shown my office area. It was 'orrible - dirty, completely open plan, ugly. Not nice at all!

mattcanary

Does it really matter where you're working? Surely, it's what you do in your job, how the employer operates and what your colleague/manager/ are like, that matters?

Spendless

PasturesNew wrote: »

No idea what the answer to that one would be, but if I didn't fall off my chair at the interview I'd probably say "I'd bake cakes for Fridays"

Does anybody have a clue what it means, what a right answer would be?

I think that one was where she said a couple of things when I asked for feedback but one of them was 'bringing a fresh pair of eyes'. I have never used that phrase ever so the chances of me 'hitting upon' it is remote.

PasturesNew wrote: »

I've noticed that they don't even tell you what the job covers.... I actually had a full interview a couple of months back where they never mentioned the job, or how it was done, or how many people they had, or what they did. Just asked me a bunch of these daft questions and that was it.

As for 'working environment', I've never ever seen 'where I'd be working' until the actuall morning I started work for them and turned up.

It's all most peculiar these days .... it's all trick questions and secret right answers. I fail at that

Bl00dy good at what I do, but nobody will ever benefit from that as I don't do that fluffy stuff.

It's a good job I'm not really looking for work at the moment, but simply randomly applying for a few things of interest 'in case' they turned out to be well paid jobs of my dreams and I got an interview/appointed.

I'lll always be the candidate that came second: "Fantastic knowledge and experience ... but gave some odd answers to our fluffy questions, so we picked the clone"

That's exactly what I'm going thru! Fair enough the one in the school I could roughly guess, but there were a lot of staff in there and I did't know what my 'role' would be, but counting dinner money and you don't ask...have you much experience in cash handling? In favour of one of the questions listed?????? The charity one they asked me what I knew about the area of work but again didn't expand on what you'd actually do- though their JD had been a lot clearer.

This thread has made my mind up though, I'm only prepared to put myself thru more interviews like this if I've already applied (ie I'll see them thru) but I'm not applying for any more that I can spot are likely to have this style.

ETA - Also does anyone know when the scoring is done? Is it during your interview or after? Just I was talking to Mr S about this, he has interviewed in his job for years and didn't know what I was on about when I started talking about this style and he said 'do they score afterwards and make the score fit their preference/'. I have a sneeky suspicion that I have lost out to volunteers who were working for the organisations involved. The last one where it went to someone with more experience, that area of working has only been in in our area since Autumn last year (I know due to a presentation I attended as a volunteer) so I wondered how they'd managed to get more, of course redundancy, moving from a different area that was using this is all possibilities, but I just get a 'feeling' otherwise. My last feedback when I questioned more about this style of interview and how I could improve my answers I got the distinct impression I was being fobbed off.

jimbms

These questions and use of key words as someone said are often used in public sector jobs, this is usually because the people interviewing have little experience in how to conduct an interview and read a person, also the job requires a robotic indoctrinated personality where conformity and use of PC keywords comes before individual thinking and originality. On the other hand whenever I am interviewing if an interviewee starts using all these pre indoctrinated key words, they may as well go home because I require free thinking individuals who can express themselves rather than quote fixed phrases, as such I usually ask questions designed to confuse such robots.