The job - part 1

I’ve been trying to find time to blog this since the weekend. And now finally I have a chance.

One of my clients sent an email out to a number of her contacts asking if we knew of anyone who was interested in applying for a position at her company. Personally I feel like she wanted us to apply but didn’t want to be seen to be “poaching” us if we got the job as we have some joint ventures with this particular company. Anyway, so I applied. I thought, “let’s throw it out there and see what happens”.

This was in February. So I hear nothing for a month and thought nothing of it because I’m not really looking, you know. But then a by the way at the end of one of our conversations and she says, “you have been shortlisted”. Okay….

Then again weeks go by and nothing. Then one afternoon I get a call from her. The HR person has been trying to get hold of me and can’t seem to get hold of me. I’m like, “really? That’s strange. Because if I don’t answer, my cell phone goes to voicemail.” Anyway I confirmed all my details and that was that.

So finally he phones me and we make the interview for Thursday 26 April. I arrive at the interview 5 minutes late (they have a gazillion buildings and I went to the wrong one first). Interesting thing happened though. I was at the correct reception eventually and the HR guy sees me and calls my name. He recognized me from my photo on my CV (I totally forgot that was on there and it is very out of date – 2 years old – but I’ve been told the photo makes me look older. I only left it on there because it’s the only one of me in “work clothes (a suit)”.

Now I don’t mean to boast – I really don’t (hear my heart please) – but I do very well in interviews. I’ve always been a confident, self-assured person and I have no trouble at all being interviewed by one or a number of people. In fact I prefer panel interviews (my view is I get all the people over and done with at one time) and this time it was one of those – there were 3 people.

Another thing – in all my years of working I’ve only been to one interview where I wasn’t offered the position (and that was an internal position so company politics prevailed). I’ve heard that your CV (resume) must make you stand out from the pack so mine looks very different - first of all, it’s not the same, boring things like the other 101 people applying for the same position. And secondly, I have the picture and some interesting things on there. They are either going to love me or hate me and if they still want to see me, we’re going to get along great.

So then the interview. I am always brutally honest – some would say to my detriment. You know all the things you’re not supposed to do in an interview? Yeah well, I do them. My view is that if there are issues, they better come out now. Because if I start working with you, if something was irritating you about me, it is going to get worse J And also I interview right back. At the end when they ask if there are any questions, I always have a couple and I go for it. I check what type of personalities the boss has (I can’t stand controlling, micro-managing people) and what the team culture is (hate the clock-watching type of companies) and so on.

I'll post part 2 tomorrow.

But in the meantime, what are you like in an interview?