When I was at school I used to do exams. Proper exams. 3 hours in a room with just a pen and a few pieces of paper (although they had started to bring out answer booklets by the time I finished).
And I was quite swotty at school, so I used to properly revise for exams. And if you properly revise, there comes a time before the exam, when you need to stop trying to remember stuff and trust in the fact that you've done enough. I was never one of those people reading notes outside the exam room, or reading notes on the bus on the way to the exam. I used to mostly give up the night before, sometimes earlier.
And it's quite a nice feeling, knowing that you've done all you can, and now it's just about you and the exam. I always found it was a good idea to try and remember that feeling during the first 10 minutes of every exam, when I used to have a complete and utter panic attack, and be convinced I couldn't do any of it. Usually if I was still in there after 11 minutes, I did okay.
Well, job interviews are a bit like exams. Except the subject is me. And I used to revise for interviews the same way I used to revise for exams. I used to look through lots of notes I'd made about different jobs I'd done, and I reflected on things like when I'd faced a challenging situation, or when I'd done well, or when I'd exceeded expectations, and all that telling your life story / competency based crap that you have to go through to get a job. I used to wonder what they'd ask me, and I used to get ready to answer whatever came at me.
But these days I don't bother so much. And for two main reasons.
1) I've done this exam so many times now, I know the answers off by heart. I was crap at O Level Chemistry, but if I'd taken that bloody exam as many times as I've been interviewed for jobs, I'd have been getting 100% by now.
2) Self-confidence. I'm not a performing monkey (some people might not agree), I'm a person, with a life story, and an employment record, and a history, and it is what it is. And some of it is crap. My employment history, like my life, is full of blind alleys, and some things I wish I hadn't done, and some things that didn't work out. And sometimes what I am, and what I've got is totally not what an employer is looking for. And that's fine. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me, it just means I don't match what they want.
That's not to say I've not done some work things really well over the years. It's not to say I don't have skills and talents and abilities, and strengths at work. But being myself, and letting them find that out early is a good thing, not just for them, but for me. There's nothing worse than doing a really good interview, and then ending up in a job where you want to flick your own eyeballs out with a grapefruit spoon after 5 minutes, just so you can get out of there.
The thing I've learned from all the interviews I've done, past and present, good and bad, is this. There's no point telling them that you're who you think they want you to be, unless you are in fact that person. If you're not, they'll soon find out, and they'll probably be really annoyed that you wasted their time, because now they've got to do the whole thing all over again.
And so job interviews for me now are easy. They're like exams that I've revised for. I don't overprepare, I go in, I show them who I am, and then I leave. If they ask me questions, I answer them, if I want to ask questions, I do. If they ask me why I only worked in a call centre for 3 months, I tell them it's because the job was totally wrong for me, and I found that out by working in a call centre.
I maybe wouldn't elaborate and say I knew the job was wrong for me about an hour in, but it took another 3 months less one hour to get out of there. And I maybe wouldn't mention that if I'd only figured that out about myself before I went for an interview for a job in a call centre, I never would have gone to the interview, and in doing so wasted the time of the people who interviewed me.
But whatever I tell them, they will know that it's me talking. They won't be fooled into thinking they're talking to Orville when they are in fact talking to Keith Harris. And it will then be up to them what they do with that information. And after getting to know me, if they think I'm not right for the job, they might be right. But if they think I am right for the job, then they also might be right.
Life's too short for pretending (well it's okay if you're an actor, or at primary school), but when you're a grown up, just be a grown up. When you take exams, you can't pretend to have revised, you either have or you haven't and it shows through. And the same goes for interviews. If you don't show them who you are, they'll probably notice anyway.
Postscript to this blog entry. The interview I went for this morning, I got the job.
And I was quite swotty at school, so I used to properly revise for exams. And if you properly revise, there comes a time before the exam, when you need to stop trying to remember stuff and trust in the fact that you've done enough. I was never one of those people reading notes outside the exam room, or reading notes on the bus on the way to the exam. I used to mostly give up the night before, sometimes earlier.
And it's quite a nice feeling, knowing that you've done all you can, and now it's just about you and the exam. I always found it was a good idea to try and remember that feeling during the first 10 minutes of every exam, when I used to have a complete and utter panic attack, and be convinced I couldn't do any of it. Usually if I was still in there after 11 minutes, I did okay.
Well, job interviews are a bit like exams. Except the subject is me. And I used to revise for interviews the same way I used to revise for exams. I used to look through lots of notes I'd made about different jobs I'd done, and I reflected on things like when I'd faced a challenging situation, or when I'd done well, or when I'd exceeded expectations, and all that telling your life story / competency based crap that you have to go through to get a job. I used to wonder what they'd ask me, and I used to get ready to answer whatever came at me.
But these days I don't bother so much. And for two main reasons.
1) I've done this exam so many times now, I know the answers off by heart. I was crap at O Level Chemistry, but if I'd taken that bloody exam as many times as I've been interviewed for jobs, I'd have been getting 100% by now.
2) Self-confidence. I'm not a performing monkey (some people might not agree), I'm a person, with a life story, and an employment record, and a history, and it is what it is. And some of it is crap. My employment history, like my life, is full of blind alleys, and some things I wish I hadn't done, and some things that didn't work out. And sometimes what I am, and what I've got is totally not what an employer is looking for. And that's fine. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me, it just means I don't match what they want.
That's not to say I've not done some work things really well over the years. It's not to say I don't have skills and talents and abilities, and strengths at work. But being myself, and letting them find that out early is a good thing, not just for them, but for me. There's nothing worse than doing a really good interview, and then ending up in a job where you want to flick your own eyeballs out with a grapefruit spoon after 5 minutes, just so you can get out of there.
The thing I've learned from all the interviews I've done, past and present, good and bad, is this. There's no point telling them that you're who you think they want you to be, unless you are in fact that person. If you're not, they'll soon find out, and they'll probably be really annoyed that you wasted their time, because now they've got to do the whole thing all over again.
And so job interviews for me now are easy. They're like exams that I've revised for. I don't overprepare, I go in, I show them who I am, and then I leave. If they ask me questions, I answer them, if I want to ask questions, I do. If they ask me why I only worked in a call centre for 3 months, I tell them it's because the job was totally wrong for me, and I found that out by working in a call centre.
I maybe wouldn't elaborate and say I knew the job was wrong for me about an hour in, but it took another 3 months less one hour to get out of there. And I maybe wouldn't mention that if I'd only figured that out about myself before I went for an interview for a job in a call centre, I never would have gone to the interview, and in doing so wasted the time of the people who interviewed me.
But whatever I tell them, they will know that it's me talking. They won't be fooled into thinking they're talking to Orville when they are in fact talking to Keith Harris. And it will then be up to them what they do with that information. And after getting to know me, if they think I'm not right for the job, they might be right. But if they think I am right for the job, then they also might be right.
Life's too short for pretending (well it's okay if you're an actor, or at primary school), but when you're a grown up, just be a grown up. When you take exams, you can't pretend to have revised, you either have or you haven't and it shows through. And the same goes for interviews. If you don't show them who you are, they'll probably notice anyway.
Postscript to this blog entry. The interview I went for this morning, I got the job.
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