Friday, May 29, 2009

My Very First Job Interview

It went funny. I will not divulge the prospective employer, but something very different from what you would expect in a typical job interview. There was an interview offer, I didn't apply for the job, neither did I send out my resume or cover letter. The date and venue set, I did my research, my homework, and prepared enough to be able to answer questions.

No typical interview questions - that was something that freaked me out. First came job descriptions from the interviewer, and that was it. I had no questions to ask, nothing to say. In the end, I asked if the interviewer had questions for me. They had, and I didn't think through enough before I answered. A blunder on that few questions. After some reflections, I realized that I answered the questions, but not to what the interviewer wanted to hear about. Yes, now I understand the power of listening and clarification.

Out of the half an hour, the interviewer spoke for about 20 minutes. I'm not sure if that's a good sign or not, since they were telling me more about the position, and in fact in a lot of detail, and left me with nothing to ask about.

Lessons learnt:
- Learn to expand on what they had to say.
- Listen carefully and clarify when they ask a certain type of question.
- Learn from every interview experience.