Interviews, any advice

[alreadypacked]

I had a very frank and refeshing discussion with a interviewer last week. We discussed how, sometimes, it is difficult to know at what level to pitch your CV or your interview responses. Mostly, you are presented with a brief or sub-standard job spec which in many cases bears no resmblance to the job they are looking to fill. You try to get across that you undersatand a process and have managed it before for example - in fact you 'led a team that delivered that successfully' - you then find out that that worries them because they don't want someone to 'lead the team', they want someone who is 'hands on', so you have to then back-track somewhat and explain that, of course, you were hands-on as well as leading the team......

You try to get across the fact that you have an in-depth and all round knowledge of something/anything (which is why you are a good catch), and the more twitchy hirers rule you out because you might be too good.....

WKDS

That's why I have moved myself into a nich where I am the only person on the project doing the role. Less things for the hirer to think about. Does she have enough knowledge and experience to do the role, yes/no.

Down side is there are less roles to apply for.

 

[minestrone]

OK, this is my take on the interview.

They have got you in and at some point they have thought "this person can do the job", there is no such thing as a good interview I believe, you have 30/60 minutes where they can see how much self harm you can do and rule yourself out of the job.

The classic interview is them reading you out a line from your CV and prompting you to reply, structure the CV with bullet points and rehearse 3 verbal points on each bullet point.

"It says here you worked on a trading system?"

Line 1 "That was a challenging role"
Line 2 "I added this to the team"
Line 2 "it was a great success"

And if you do not know how to answer the question? Reply with a question.

And wear good clothes.