I had a job interview today. It's for a lab manager position at a small hospital that's actually very close to my house...only took about 10 minutes to get home at almost 5 pm. Anyway, there is a reason that I feel the need to discuss this. I applied for the job and got a call the next day for what the lady called "a brief phone interview". I finally got a hold of her the next day to have what I thought was going to be "a brief phone interview". Meaning to me, you tell me a little about your hospital, I tell you a little about why I applied. Oh no, not the case. She asked me four or five straight-up interview questions. You know the ones. 'Tell me about a time when...' and all that jazz. I was completely unprepared, said um every other word and, at one point, didn't speak for like 30 seconds. She thought her phone had cut out and told me that she was having a problem with the cord. I went along with it and told her I hadn't heard the question. She repeated it, but I still had no answer! At the end she told me the next step would be to come in for an interview and asked if I would be interested in doing that. My jaw dropped to the floor and I thought 'Are
you interested in that? Where you on the same phone call that I just was? Because that was horrible!!' I said of course and we found a time that would work for the CEO...that's right, I said CEO. Because she's the one conducting the interviews.
Aack.
Okay, so I start to panic. Since I totally bombed the phone interview, I was going to have to totally ace the sit down with the
frickin CEO. I went out and bought my very first suit. It's super cute (and professional) but was $200 after a couple of discounts. Oh well, it's machine washable! Seriously. Go to the Limited. It's called the Travel Suit, it doesn't wrinkle and can be machine washed and dried (I think). I also spent many an hour perusing the interview prep articles on monster.com. Many an hour! My chihuahua Max has been feeling very neglected. I had specific examples of
strengths, weaknesses, achievements, how to deal with difficult people, failures. I had a bullet point list of all the reasons why I would be good at the job and why they should hire me even though I'm not sure that I really want this specific job. So what did she ask me? The only interview-type question she asked me was "Tell me about yourself and what you're looking for in a job." That's it?! Yep. Most of the interview was spent touring the hospital and the lab I'd be in charge of. We chatted about the atmosphere that they try to create in their little community and all that good stuff. I'm telling you she never asked about my
strengths, my work ethic, or my accomplishments. She did ask if I'd ever supervised anyone before, but that was really easy to answer. "Not with a title, but technically yes...blah blah." I'm really not sure what to think about this. Then she told me about the benefits and asked me how much notice I need to give to my current employer. 'There are 3 other applicants and I'm the last to interview. We're hoping to call people by the end of the week. I'll probably call you tomorrow.' Huh? No second interview? I'm confused. I guess I'll just have to wait. I haven't been on an interview in over 5 years and I pretty much knew that I was going to get the job. I obviously didn't know what to expect here. I feel like the phone interview was the real interview and the real interview was the laid-back conversational thing I expected from the phone interview!! Oh well, no point in obsessing over it. Yeah right. I'm off to the message boards of monster.com to see if anyone else has had this experience. Later.
