Interviews

Well it is nearly 4am and although I slept for a couple of hours at one point during the night, I have kind of given up now. I have had two interviews this week and I think it has taken it out of me a bit, they are stressful things, bit like exams.

Although I was confident about the first one and felt I did my best, yesterday I did another one which in a funny way although I was unsure if I wanted the job – I felt I deserved it more and should achieve something. Perhaps because I feel I was sort of expected to do well, it made me more nervous than I actually thought I was?

After my confidence boosting experience on Monday I felt this one would be easier but for some reason when I got in there… nerves got to me and I didn’t really give a good account of myself or what I knew about the position and basically just screwed it up. I just felt it went badly- I felt like I was unprepared ( I wasn’t but the answers I gave were not great quite frankly) and I am sure I came across that way. My nerves even included a shaky voice that I hadn’t expected…anyway I was told I gave an excellent interview, that my attention to detail and work ethic are ‘superb’, I am reliable, but sadly I was just lacking in experience compared to the successful individual and he got a couple more ticks in their psychometric questions- but I suppose they are supposed to say that if they want me to come back for free huh?

The fact is 3 of us went for the job, 2 of us volunteers and one who works on a temp basis. I kind of had an inkling that perhaps the temp person had a better shot but was encouraged by various people to apply for the position. I had a mini hint from someone that works there that I might be in a better position for the post if I was a man- and surprise, surprise temp person is a man…

It is a bit complicated but basically since I moved to where I currently reside, for most of the time I have required a work permit because I am not from here ( I am married now so don’t need one- makes excuses for unemployability a bit more difficult these days!). I was told before I arrived that it was highly unlikely this would be an issue but I am afraid it was very much of an issue and has had a huge impact on my career (if you could call my job history a career!). Basically what with the economic climate the way it is the areas I had experience were more likely to be sacking people than taking them on and even if I did well at interview, if there was someone of the same calibre I would be rejected in favour of them if they didn’t require a permit. Most people I am up against are local.

Anyway, I have applied for jobs where I currently volunteer before and I know they were really keen to employ me, especially earlier in the year when a full time staff member was taken ill for an extended period. They wanted me because I didn’t need any training, basically already did the job and well so I believe. I applied and a letter was sent from the employer to the permit board explaining it would be of benefit to them as a charity and to the community to employ me but still my application was denied- even though there was no one experienced like I was which I was lead to believe would have made me eligible for a work permit AND they were informed that I was due to be married within a few months which would make the permit issue irrelevant. However, once again for whatever reason it was denied. So, a temp person had to employed and then trained – in fact I have often have to assist him when he gets stuck- he has on numerous occasions made mistakes and seems to care little. He is a very pleasant man but quite loud… anyway, that doesn’t really matter the upshot is that because he now has more experience (that made me a bit sick when they stated that was one of the reasons…) and in the psychomtric testing he fits with the group dynamic better ( so a loud  person who makes lots of mistakes fits in the dynamic better???! God what does that say about me??). I have to admit I was unaware they were using psychometric testing as it was done differently to when I had one previously) so thus made the mistake of trying to give honest answers. Psychometric tests are in my opinion a very poor, perhaps cowards way of doing an interview -effectively taking the decision making out of it and leaving it down to tick boxes on a page- ‘ahhh you have more ticks- thus you are more suitable  for the job!’. This essentially takes the human element of making a decision out of it so why does a human even give you the interview if they can’t effectively evaluate you on their own, instead having to resort to the tick boxes to make such decisions? If they had already ear marked the guy out for the job and were just trying to get out of making a decision every which way then I wish they had just said. But perhaps I should just come to realisation that loud and obnoxious people seem to get heard more and thus are better suited to the job than me or even that I just wasn’t good enough after all. Despite being good enough to do the job, for free, for a year. I feel just a smidge humiliated.

Also, just a side note but perhaps an interesting one even if it is a be self pitying and self indulgent. The volunteer work I do is for a cancer charity- they don’t know, but my Aunty has cancer and is, well, very ill indeed and yet I still keep going up there every week and they don’t even know.

And I am expected to go back and volunteer again tomorrow…great.