What Not to say in a Job Interview

Today marks a whole year since I missed the phone call from my recruitment agency telling me I'd actually managed to blag myself a job. True story. I genuinely missed the call. Luckily, I was able to call her back pretty quick, whole-heartedly expecting to hear another rendition of "they really liked you but....". So in memorial of this momentous day, I'm finally publishing the below blog post, which I wrote during my job search. I hope it provides a little inspiration, or failing that, a good laugh xo.

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I don't know how to tell you guys this, but I seriously loved the whole 'unemployed graduate' thing. I mean, every day that recruitment agencies ignored my emails, rejected my applications and lost my phone number, it was all just one big confidence boost after another. I was bursting with so much pride and confidence, it could've been weaponised.

Psych! It was hands down the worst time of my life.

I won't lie to you, when I started my job hunting journey, I had next to no interview experience (I wonder if that's obvious by the below...), so I had pretty much had no idea what I was doing or what I should be saying. Now, ten points to Gryffindor if you can work out why the below statements caused me to not get hired...

1. Me: "...I once spent a summer doing nothing but scanning and it basically made me want to kill myself"
   Interviewer: "There will be scanning involved in this role"
   {Of course there will be}


2. Interviewer: "So tell me about yourself. Tell me what you're about"
   Me: *Internally wets self* "Umm well at uni I studied..."
   {Good one Eleanor, he now officially knows you have NO LIFE.}


3. Me: "Haha, so I'd get to pick up the phone and boss people around?"
   Interviewer: "Ha, well we tend to call it 'manage'"


4. Interviewer: "How would you say you work best?"
   Me: "I tend to work quite well under pressure [insert incoherent babble about stuff my brain has quite clearly blocked me from remembering for a good reason]... So what I'm saying is, I tend to get the best results when my life is going really badly." *Mentally punches self in the face*


5. Interviewer: "So does that all sound good?"
   Me: "Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeahhh... I'm just saying yeah a lot now." *Awkward laughter*


6. Me: "Sorry, my brain's just trying to process it all in-case there's a test at the end" *mimes writing a test*
   Interviewer: "There's no test"
   {What a waste of a perfectly good mime.}


7. Interviewer: "So why this industry?"
   Me: *Gives long winded explanation and probably goes off subject* "Well I think I probably just used up all the fifteen minutes with that answer so I'll just leave now"


8. Interviewer: "So what do you read, newspaper wise?"
   Me: "Well I'd say the Daily Mail but my dad would never speak to me again"


9. Interviewer: "So how many twitter followers do you have?"
   Me: "Well, probably not as many as you... But one of them is Britney Spears"
   *pause where I'm not sure what's going on*
   Interviewer: "Wait, Britney Spears follows you on twitter? How! Why isn't this on your CV. That's the kind of thing you need to put on your CV!"
   {It is now on my CV}


10. [A couple of days after the interview]
    Recruitment Agency: "I know you were only late to the interview because of very heavy traffic which couldn't be helped, and you informed us in time, but this company are very big on punctuality so it's not looking good..."
    Me: "I totally get that being late isn't a good quality but there was literally nothing I could do about getting stuck in traffic... I think not offering me a job simply on those grounds is a bit... well... Nazi like"
    {Luckily for me, I didn't actually want that job, but I can't say calling the HR team "Nazi's" would've really helped my case if I did...}

There are probably about a bajillion more examples that I could pull up for you to enjoy but I think we all get the picture here: I am not gifted at interviews. And I am in no hurry to relive this experience. *Hangs head in shame*.

~ Eleanor xo