Job Interviews

Howdy!

Soooo over here, we got some ice rain late last night to this morning. My doorway is an ice rink right now. The snow plows have not made it this way and neither has there been any salting. Idk when they'll be here but I KNOW I'm not playing slip and slide tomorrow morning. Looks like I'll be late to work.

But back to the scheduled program. I mentioned I had a job interview last week. Well the week before, I also had another interview. That was my first interview in 2 years and I was super super nervous. The interview was scheduled as a video conference and that added more pressure. I wasn't quite sure what to wear, how to prepare, how to sit, the whole works. You see, I had applied for this position months ago and had to go back in time to find the description and find out about the company all over again. The night before, I spent hours going through their website and trying to cram as much information about the organization as possible. I also watched countless interview videos on YouTube. There are some great prep videos there.

Finally, it was time for the interview and I signed in. About 15 mins later, my interviewers showed up but they were having some technical issues and had to do a phone interview instead. Score! 2 people interviewed me (a great blessing since there were 7 people listed in the meeting appointment) and I think it went pretty well. They didn't ask me any of those usual questions that seemed to be floating around. Such as:

• What are your greatest weaknesses/strengths?
• Tell me about yourself.
• Where do you see yourself in xxx years?

None of that. Those were the questions I was prepared to answer. I mean I recited my elevator speech a few times that morning. Something I've never done. Instead of a structured interview, I got a conversation. Which, I believe was pretty awesome! So they asked things like:

• What do you know about our organization? This is where stalking their website provided me with the perfect response. It was a data analyst position and I had found unrestricted data and played around with it. This set the stage for the rest of our conversation. 
• What kind of software are you familiar with and how do you use them? They wanted specific examples of projects and commands I had used.
• Do you require a structured training or are you fine with learning as you go?
• Will you be able to come down for a second interview?
• How would you handle a situation in which you have to give corrections to someone who doesn't want them?
• How would you check for errors in data?

So you get the picture. I only got asked position specific questions and that made it go very well. I'm waiting to hear back from them. Oh and the interview lasted 30 minutes. I think that was definitely a good amount of time.

My next interview was in person. I broke out the full suit look. I haven't tucked in a shirt since I graduated from secondary school (a long time ago) so that definitely took a lot of getting used to. This was for a different position but it was also great. The questions were also position specific.

All in all, I would say both went very well and that those were definitely necessary experiences for me. It's a great feeling when you're called for an interview after months and months of applications and waiting. You just feel so great knowing that your resume and cover letter were good enough to be considered for an interview!

I'm still waiting for next steps. The new waiting game is also hard :).

Have you had any recent interviews? Or some interview horrors and/or tips? Please share!!

Stay warm and dry!
Tonia