Sunday, 13 January 2013

How NOT to do job interviews



Having now had some experience in job interviews I thought that it would be a good idea to share some of my advice.

Firstly when you find yourself lucky enough to have landed a job interview make sure that you don’t research the company, don’t be tempted to go onto the businesses website, it pays to be ignorant. If the interviewers happen to ask about what you know about them just smile and nod, umming and ahhing is also a good choice.

Another solid piece of advice for interviewees is to always turn up really early; it keeps whoever is interviewing you on their toes and more often than not results in a nice cup of tea while you wait. Although sometimes this will result in awkward scenarios in the staff kitchen but isn’t that what life is all about? One awkward scenario after another. 

During the interview it always helps to be one of the following; either desperate for the toilet or really really hungry. Both is also advised as it makes for quite the interesting interview. Although if you do need the toilet so badly that you are on the verge of wetting yourself, maybe you should have gone before you left the house.

It helps your case if you can exaggerate things ever so slightly, now I don’t mean lying through your teeth รก la Rebecca Bloomwood in Confessions of a Shopaholic who claimed to be fluent in Finish, but you could suggest that you know how to fully use say a computer programme even if you have only ever used said programme once in your entire life. However this may come back to bite you if they give you a task to do, a task that involves using Excel. Having put on my CV that I had had a lot of experience in this programme ‘they’ may have thought that this was not a big ask however what I failed to mention is that I had not used in Excel  since year 8 which was, it suffices to say, quite a while ago.

If for any reason you have a bad interview I have found solace in talking to the local shopkeeper, for about an hour to be exact. If the person behind the counter is unable to recount your life story after your meeting, then you aren’t doing it right.

*I would strongly advise you NOT to take any of what you have just read as serious advice

*Everything here is based on real events

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