Had my first 'bad' interview in years yesterday
It's been fairly quiet up North for the past few months, so I was pleased yesterday when I managed to get an interview for a gig that involves a fairly meaty project in the Financial Services industry, that I'm well-suited to on a technical level, and that would see me through to the end of the year. It started off well; CV turned around within 24 hours, agent a nice competent chap that I'd worked with before, and it was an 100% skills match for once (which is unusual when the job spec lists nine discrete technologies, some of which are direct competitors to one another). When I arrived, the place was really nice, and to cap it all off they even fared well in my "Reception Test". [I invariably find that if the person manning the reception desk is nice, then that's generally a good place to work. Because reception is fairly near the bottom of the hierarchy in most organisations, whatever the place's internal culture is like is usually reflected in how happy the person doing that job is to be there. This also works in reverse: I've always found when I've been hiring technical staff that the receptionist's opinion of them has been pretty insightful – whilst candidates are always of course civil to me in the interview room, someone that can't even be nice to a receptionist is generally also someone that won't work well in a team.]
When all those positives are lined up, I'm usually pretty good at interviews. From contracting, I've done enough of them, and so know the pitfalls to avoid like wittering on too much, or being too wishy-washy and failing to get your strengths across. However, in this particular one, I just felt I hadn't fired on all cylinders for whatever reason on the day. I didn't come out thinking "yep, that went well", and I'm fairly sure I didn't get the gig (no definite feedback either way yet, which is in itself pretty telling – contract gigs that are going ahead usually turn around far quicker than this). My only slight excuse is that it was one of those "interviews over coffee" things that I usually hate: I prefer interviews to be held in surroundings that respect the privacy of the process and cut out any distractions. This one was held in the soft seating area of their on-site canteen, and they spent the first 35 minutes or so of the hour we spoke telling me what they wanted, before handing over to me to let me explain how I could help fulfil their brief. Within that time, there were a couple of groups of existing employees nearby having social conversations at about the same noise level as we were trying to speak. I can't blame my bad performance just on that, though. I simply had an off day for once. I wouldn't have given me the gig if I had been interviewing me based on my performance at interview. Bah humbug.
Never mind, keep looking.
When all those positives are lined up, I'm usually pretty good at interviews. From contracting, I've done enough of them, and so know the pitfalls to avoid like wittering on too much, or being too wishy-washy and failing to get your strengths across. However, in this particular one, I just felt I hadn't fired on all cylinders for whatever reason on the day. I didn't come out thinking "yep, that went well", and I'm fairly sure I didn't get the gig (no definite feedback either way yet, which is in itself pretty telling – contract gigs that are going ahead usually turn around far quicker than this). My only slight excuse is that it was one of those "interviews over coffee" things that I usually hate: I prefer interviews to be held in surroundings that respect the privacy of the process and cut out any distractions. This one was held in the soft seating area of their on-site canteen, and they spent the first 35 minutes or so of the hour we spoke telling me what they wanted, before handing over to me to let me explain how I could help fulfil their brief. Within that time, there were a couple of groups of existing employees nearby having social conversations at about the same noise level as we were trying to speak. I can't blame my bad performance just on that, though. I simply had an off day for once. I wouldn't have given me the gig if I had been interviewing me based on my performance at interview. Bah humbug.
Never mind, keep looking.
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