Hi fellow Ranters,
Today I’m preparing for a job interview tomorrow!
Interview Jitters
Over the years I’ve been on many job interviews for one reason or another. Each time though it doesn’t make it any less stressful! My wife had been on seemingly many dozens of interviews in her life for her job and different things so it’s not so much a big deal to her. I’ve only been on about 10 or so, so I don’t have as much experience in the situation. We saw a job that is in the place where we want to live and move so naturally I applied for it and was hoping to get some time to sit down with the recruiter and get to business. I got the reply that I was chosen for an interview!
Interviews are a bit of a challenging thing to go on. People expect polished and really well kept people to be presented and we certainly try to be that person but it’s difficult still. I’m very good at my job and the job I applied for but I sometimes find it difficult to convey that to people who aren’t in the role I’m in, such as Human Resources people. I’m trying to think of ways that I can finesse my interpersonal skills to properly get across to them that I would be a solid fit for the job and they should invest in me as an employee in their company.
The interview jitters are always a double edged sword. I think they are good, it keeps me on my toes and you are sort of prepared for the obvious questions like tell me about yourself and stuff but trying to also be prepared for the other questions they have on their list that I have no idea about is also a thing that makes me nervous. Will I answer it right? Will I go into too much detail? What’s too much or too little detail? All of these things are going through your mind while you are trying to answer the questions. It’s kind of incredible how many things can get fired through the brain at once in a situation like that!
I’ve skated through some interviews over the past few years just to kind of get my feet wet with them, recruiters reaching out to me about a job they have that they would like to interview me for. I did okay with those and turned down some things but this being a job I applied for and want to get, that’s the tough part. It’s kind of like a relationship you want to pursue, how do you go about the initial interactions to try and garner a second date at least?
The other part that’s a little challenging is it’s being hosted virtually so I’m going to sit in our room with my camera on and talk with the hiring manager. That’s a first for me, though it would have been so because the job is in a different state. Thankfully with the technology nowadays, we can do things like blur backgrounds and stuff so that they can’t see some of the things behind me. We don’t have a lot of space so the rooms are a bit of a hot mess lol. I need to get situated with getting that set up as well.
Writing down a list of questions I have has been a good practice that I think helps show the seriousness of my interest. I’ve learned from past experience that not having any questions is a bad thing, but having too many questions could be an issue. The sweet spot might be something less than 5 questions. There are some easy ones like
- How big is the team I’ll be working on?
- What is the user community like, how large is it?
- Whats the history of the job, is it a new posting or did someone leave the position? (Good question that they don’t anticipate sometimes! Gotta know if it’s new and maybe not something long term or if they are filling an open position)
Trying to think of some more, thankfully I have a few hours before the interview to get some of that situated!
What’s your job interview experience? Do you find it hard or easy? I might not see some of the comments until after the interview is over but it’s an interesting topic for me! I think I’ll be on a few more interviews in the coming months so I am trying to get back into the swing of things with it and wouldn’t mind some tips people have! I’m trying not to take it too seriously otherwise you mess it up. Gotta go in there with the right mindset.
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