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The job hunting support thread

I remember going to an interview with Capita (of all people to sell out my services to) and the interview went so well me and the two interviewers were getting on so well we were all laughing together by the end of the interview.

As the interviewer let me out he gave me a big wink and said that I would be hearing back from them real soon. I walked away thinking it was a done deal. After a week of hearing nothing I chased the agency who also hadn't gotten back to me and they didn't need to even chase it because they had been told that I was unsuccessful.

I had wasted a week of job search because I was convinced that I had got the job. It's all one way traffic when you are job searching. They don't seem to care one bit that there are people with lives at the end of the process.

Lesson learned. Never bother to apply for those government mules at Capita and don't stop job searching until you have officially started the job.
 
savoloysam said:
I remember going to an interview with Capita (of all people to sell out my services to) and the interview went so well me and the two interviewers were getting on so well we were all laughing together by the end of the interview.

As the interviewer let me out he gave me a big wink and said that I would be hearing back from them real soon. I walked away thinking it was a done deal. After a week of hearing nothing I chased the agency who also hadn't gotten back to me and they didn't need to even chase it because they had been told that I was unsuccessful.

I had wasted a week of job search because I was convinced that I had got the job. It's all one way traffic when you are job searching. They don't seem to care one bit that there are people with lives at the end of the process.

Lesson learned. Never bother to apply for those government mules at Capita and don't stop job searching until you have officially started the job.
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Yeah, I hate that, being lead on.
 
My worst interview experience wasn’t for a job as such, but an audition for a major drama school in London when I was 19. After doing my two prepared monologues, I stood on stage and was quizzed by a panel of teachers and directors. After asking what my mother and father did for a living, one of them asked. “And when were your first stirrings of lust?”

I can’t remember what I answered. In hindsight, I should have told them to fuck off with such an inappropriate and irrelevant question. I knew the interview would be hard, but didn’t expect it to be that intrusive.
 
savoloysam said:
Yes. I do remember thinking how strange that he appeared to be telling me in a surreal way that I had got the job straight after the interview.

Maybe there was some serious irony going on that had gone right over my head. Either way it was very unprofessional.
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I've been asked all sorts of questions that insinuate I've gotten the job over the years. It's deeply frustrating.

Like this last job, I just knew I hadn't gotten the role after the interview, because the HR person wouldn't look me in the eye.

I don't believe I was rude in any of my answers, but there were definitely a couple of questions that the COO did not appreciate me asking. They weren't inappropriate in any way, he just didn't like being asked them.

They were all 'we're looking for someone who can tell it to us straight' when clearly they meant 'but not really'.
 
Skim said:
My worst interview experience wasn’t for a job as such, but an audition for a major drama school in London when I was 19. After doing my two prepared monologues, I stood on stage and was quizzed by a panel of teachers and directors. After asking what my mother and father did for a living, one of them asked. “And when were your first stirrings of lust?”

I can’t remember what I answered. In hindsight, I should have told them to fuck off with such an inappropriate and irrelevant question. I knew the interview would be hard, but didn’t expect it to be that intrusive.
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Another interview that I posted about on here at the time was for a non customer facing role and halfway through the interview the interviewer pulled out a camera phone and said "Do you mind if we take a photo of you? We do this to all of our applicants"

I was so taken aback that I didn't have time the time to think fuck this and walk out and said yes. I was fucking fuming after when they told me that they were very impressed with my interview but I was not successful :mad:
 
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Orang Utan said:
I had an interview last week for the part-time position and today I was offered it. Had to turn it down though as I need a full time job.
But I was also invited for interview for the full time job today. The person who called to offer me the job is also on the panel for this interview and they wished me luck, so fingers crossed that I’ll do as well as I did at the last interview :cool:
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I didn’t :(
 
I got some great feedback. They advised me to not be disheartened or discouraged and to keep trying. I was in the top 3 and there was a lot of discussion on who to pick. They thought my passion for public libraries was evident and i apparently made one of the panel tear up from my eloquence and enthusiasm for them. I was just maybe a bit light on detail and should in future assume my interviewers know absolutely nothing about anything. And that was just a little bit of what was said and they then said they’d get back to me next week with more detailed feedback, so they must like me and want to encourage me to keep at it. They even said it was a matter of when not if that I’d be working with them in future.
I am also consoled by the fact that I do like my job a lot more than I have done in the past and find it a lot less stressful than I have done in the past, so I don’t mind biding my time here.
 
Orang Utan said:
I was just maybe a bit light on detail and should in future assume my interviewers know absolutely nothing about anything.
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There is a potential pitfall in local authority job interviews, if you're an internal candidate, of (either intentionally or subconsciously) not going in to detail because you know that they know you know stuff (if you see what i mean) - but (if they are doing it right) you're going to be scored on your application / interview answers the same as anyone from outside, so you do need to go in to detail. although it's sometimes hard to know where to pitch it.

hope all goes well next time
 
Puddy_Tat said:
There is a potential pitfall in local authority job interviews, if you're an internal candidate, of (either intentionally or subconsciously) not going in to detail because you know that they know you know stuff (if you see what i mean) - but (if they are doing it right) you're going to be scored on your application / interview answers the same as anyone from outside, so you do need to go in to detail. although it's sometimes hard to know where to pitch it.

hope all goes well next time
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A story I heard from a colleague.

Someone in the organisation I work in applied for an internal job which involves driving. He had spent 20 years in the organisation doing roles which had the word “driver” in the job title. He didn’t mention he had a full uk driving licence in his application and hence didn’t get shortlisted for interview as that was an essential criteria for interview.
 
And their offices were really weird too. Did not like. So there's that.

Never thought I'd miss my desk overlooking a derelict asbestos filled factory so much!
 
equationgirl said:
after the third interview I had
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frankly, fuck that.

employers seem to think everyone's got loads of time - and money for travelling to interviews. not everyone's a recent graduate doing the full time job hunting thing.

as a transport worker who has at times been in the sort of job where you can't just ask for a day off at short notice it's particularly bloody annoying when transport sector employers do it...
 
Puddy_Tat said:
frankly, fuck that.

employers seem to think everyone's got loads of time - and money for travelling to interviews. not everyone's a recent graduate doing the full time job hunting thing.

as a transport worker who has at times been in the sort of job where you can't just ask for a day off at short notice it's particularly bloody annoying when transport sector employers do it...
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Yeah, in previous jobs I've had to be quite circumspect when booking time off for interviews because some colleagues would be very nosy and try to find out what I had done on my day off.

One colleague would pointedly say 'hope you had a nice holiday' when I arrived at work the next day, so I'd say no, not really, and ignore her.

As a side note, this same colleague asked me, the day after I was put at risk, how to get a payrise.(I just looked at her). Then after she got it she fucked off to a new job.
 
My worst interview.

With a director who first asked me how old I was which she wasn't supposed by law to discriminate on, anyhow I said 50 and she said but our marketing people are all 20 somethings! So what I retorted but she had already decided I was too old. Then she asked me when my birthday was so she could work out my star sign to see how I might fit in with others in a particular department.

She asked what my star sign was, during an interview! wtf!

Obviously I didn't get that job.

Another after our interview when I was asking closing questions said that she was sure I could do the job but that other people in the department were what were her words, I don't recall but the emphasis was that they were young and I wasn't. Quite pissed me off I could have done that job standing on my head. Ageist they were, when I told the consultant who had put me forward for the role they were horrified.
 
weltweit said:
My worst interview.

With a director who first asked me how old I was which she wasn't supposed by law to discriminate on, anyhow I said 50 and she said but our marketing people are all 20 somethings! So what I retorted but she had already decided I was too old. Then she asked me when my birthday was so she could work out my star sign to see how I might fit in with others in a particular department.

She asked what my star sign was, during an interview! wtf!

Obviously I didn't get that job.

Another after our interview when I was asking closing questions said that she was sure I could do the job but that other people in the department were what were her words, I don't recall but the emphasis was that they were young and I wasn't. Quite pissed me off I could have done that job standing on my head. Ageist they were, when I told the consultant who had put me forward for the role they were horrified.
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I had a similar experience. I'd been working in a customer service type role in a call centre (public sector adjacent, so not a salesy one, not target-driven). I left when my contract ended. (I'd been covering the role while the person who's job it was did a secondment.)

I had an interview for a customer service role in a call centre. For a had been start-upy type commercial organisation but was now a lot bigger but still had the start-up vibe.

I'd had a pre-interview/chat with HR over the phone before they invited me to interview, seemingly went well.

Then in the interview with a young woman who led one of the call centre teams, she asked me straight out, Most of the teams are young, how would you feel about working with such younger people?

I'd replied that I'd just been working in a call centre role with lots of younger people, it wasn't a problem, we even socialised together outside work, because we all had an interest in the arts and music, etc, so we had things in common and it wasn't an issue.

Needless to say, I didn't get the job. I felt like complaining about ageism to the HR person who'd seemed okay and put me through for an interview, but didn't want to cause a fuss in case I applied for a job there again in future. (They were quite a big employer and vacancies came up regularly, and I didn't want a black mark against my name.)

I did think though, Fucking hell! A woman being ageist towards me as well!?

And also the thought crossed my mind 'You'll be forty-something one day (or older) and you might be looking for a job, and I hope you remember what you asked me and how you treated me for the 'crime' of being over 40, and I hope you realise how bad and wrong it was.'
 
Another day another rejection with the usual too many applications so can't tell you why you were unsuccessful.

Thought it would be a long shot because although I had worked on the types of agreements I knew would be involved, I am not a quantity surveyor.

Plus land agreements are actually quite boring.
 
Hi equationgirl I didn't realise you were job hunting at the moment.

Are you finding plenty of jobs to apply to or is it harder to find them?

The last time I was looking I didn't really find too much in my area, despite using lots of job boards.
 
equationgirl said:
Another day another rejection with the usual too many applications so can't tell you why you were unsuccessful.

Thought it would be a long shot because although I had worked on the types of agreements I knew would be involved, I am not a quantity surveyor.

Plus land agreements are actually quite boring.
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Keep going you will get there.
 
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