So I'm in the process of searching for new employment due to my company relocating to another city. If I don’t relocate, I get retrenched.
It has been a scary process going out into the market place and putting myself out there.
You are judged on the first impression you make, how well you are able to describe your own strengths and weaknesses (I'm not sure why they think people are going to give them a long list of our weak points... I mean I'm here to make you believe I'm the best candidate not shoot myself in the foot), the way you describe your skills, your personal history and basically who you are as a person.
It has been a very big learning curve not to lose confidence in myself and my abilities after being rejected after so many gruelling breakdown sessions. They are basically saying that you are not good enough, or not what they are looking for.
I find that interviews have changed from being focussed on the experience you have to whether you fit in with the persona they have in mind. After being to a great number of interviews, I have had many different interview situations.
Some people go through the regular, tell us about yourself. What are your strengths and weaknesses? How did you get to where you are at such a young age? What are your goals for the next ten years? Are you sure that this is the career you want to do. How do you manage conflict situations? Or they work on a psychological assessment situation, where your answer on what animal you would be determines whether you get the job or not.
The recruitment agencies definitely fulfil a generic interview situation. Most of the time the agencies staff have no idea what my specific field of employment entails. Sure they might have a reasonable textbook knowledge of the field, but if you use some really large complicated sounding words confidently, they are “completely blown away by your in-depth knowledge of your specific field”.
Some of them try to break you down by firing questions at you and criticizing everything about yourself. I've had a woman tell me she was offended by my removing of my jacket at an interview without asking for her permission (it was 35 degrees outside and no air-conditioned inside). She then criticised my professional work blouse at it did not have sleeves and she felt uncomfortable by the sight of my arms... she was special. Very special.
Her colleague sat quietly throughout the interview staring at me with a very obviously look of condescending hatred on her face. That was honestly the most uncomfortable situation I had ever experienced. Then they recommended me for some really great positions, so I obviously made a good impression despite their “tearing me down” interview strategy.
The most difficult situation is an interview with more than one person. Usually you have one chatty, friendly person, another dominating question firing question and a third person quietly staring you down. Obviously each person needs to be responded to differently. So I usually feel bi-polar as someone will agree with something I said where another interviewer will completely disagree.
Another recruitment agent that I was interviewed by was the sweetest girl, so down to earth, quiet and absolutely amazing. She made me feel so confident about myself. I actually felt that we could become great friends if the opportunity arose.
Another was with a company and upon arrival their receptionist proceeded in making me feel completely out of my depth before I entered the boardroom by notifying me that I was one of hundreds of applications and they are looking for a very specific type of person. Upon arrival in the interview room, I was not met by the people I had been notified would be interviewing me, but instead I would be interviewed by two middle aged woman. The one was sweet, pleasant and confident.
The other sat sullenly shooting out questions. After grilling me about my age for a while and pushing their seniority around, the interview eventually ended when they "didn't know what else to ask me".
I received a response saying that thought I was a perfect candidate except for the fact that I was too young for the position. Seriously… did they think I would have arrived being older than the age indicated on my CV? If I was too young, then why call me in?
Apparently they had another less senior position they wanted me for. Scary truth is the “senior” position I applied for was not a “senior” level salary so I decided not to go for the more junior position as the salary would probably not be able to pay for my monthly petrol…
A few other interesting experiences have included a middle aged man offering me a cigarette while speaking about himself throughout the interview, basically selling himself to me (Grossssssssss); A gent telling me he was afraid the position wouldn’t be challenging enough for me and telling that he wouldn’t pay me a salary but I could consult through him (whaaat?); Another where the owner met me and changed the job description advertised to basically running his company when meeting me and then when I got excited told me that they couldn’t afford to pay me what I was currently getting and that they had recently cut all their staff’s salaries in half (I’m sorry whaaaattt???); Another where I had to do assessments for two full days, competing with about 50 applicants for a position, of which they notified us when we arrived that it would basically consist of driving a minivan around the rural areas handing out flyers (basically a taxi in the location…) and of course many positions where I was the only Caucasian applicant, obviously not standing a chance at employment with my pale white skin which would majorly decrease their BEE status.
Through it all, I have been for a few interviews where I have had the privilege of meeting some inspiring individuals and have realised that this little town that I live in has some extremely successful entrepreneurs.
So wherever this job seeking road takes me, I know that I will add great value to the lucky organisation that is smart enough to snatch me up.
In the meantime… this limbo feeling and the great unknown path ahead of me are keeping me inspired, hopeful and excited for the upcoming changes, whatever they may be.
