This Is No Fun Anymore

It all went quiet for me again after being rejected from Company H and there seemed to be a pattern emerging for me. One week I would have at least one or two interviews followed by a week of rejections, only for the next week to have more interviews again. I was starting to get very bored and de-motivated by this and wanted to break the cycle by actually getting a job!

In between applying for jobs, I mostly spent my time watching trashy daytime television (mainly American chat shows) and doing chores for my Mum which included but was not limited to, cleaning, ironing and taking the dog for a walk. As much as I enjoy these activities (ahem) I would rather be spending my time pursuing my career like everyone else.

As per my job pattern, I ended up with a week of three consecutive days of interviews, each for completely different roles. The first with Company I to be an Administrator, the second with Company J to be a Trainee Manager and the third with Company K (a well-known department store) to be a Sales Assistant – it was going to be a hectic week!

Luckily for me I knew someone on the inside of Company I who gave me some good hints and tips as to what to expect for the interview so when I arrived I was feeling positive. The interview consisted of your usual interview questions but after I’d finished answering a question, the interviewer would pause, then say, ‘okay’ really slowly and then carry on with the next question. It was a little off-putting and made me doubt whether I was answering the question well enough. It was also the first interview where I would start to answer a question then forget what the question was and have to re-ask it! It did make me wonder was I was rambling on about to forget the question though… It ended with the usual, ‘we are hoping to make our decision next week so you should hear then’ line and off I went.

Next up, Company J. This was a telephone interview which allowed me to have my notes in front of me to check in case I forgot anything and they actually rung on time rather then me sat there staring at my phone to ring, which is usually what happens. I was expecting the first couple of questions to be around what I knew about the company but no, the interviewer went straight in at the deep end and all the notes that I had made were irrelevant especially as the interview was only twenty minutes long. This didn’t fill me with too much hope but you never know, maybe he could tell from my voice that I was obviously amazing and didn’t need to hear anymore... or something along those lines!!

The week ended with Company K and even though the role was to be a Sales Assistant I had to have a telephone interview first and then attend an assessment day. I wasn’t too sure what to expect but when I turned up I was easily the oldest person there, I was not amused. The ‘assessment day’ consisted of an ice-breaker, a group exercise and an interview. In the group exercise we were given a scenario about working on the shop floor and we had to discuss between us how we would tackle this problem, we then had to read it out to the rest of the group. Well I say ‘read’ loosely as most people read it in a monotonous voice, not looking up and ignoring all types of grammar, I hate to sound snobbish but the majority of people there were your stereotypical Sales Assistant and I really shouldn’t have been there. The interview again was interesting as one of the first things that the interviewer said to me was, ‘don’t worry if you don’t have much work experience, try to use examples from school or outside of school to help you answer the questions’, I really don’t think that I look sixteen so the interviewer was clearly used to interviewing a certain type of person…

Although I had had a jammed packed week of interviews leading me to think that maybe things were starting to look up, I knew from my previous record that the probability of me getting any one of these jobs was slim. True to form I was rejected from all three and Company I and J gave me pretty much the same reason – if the person they had offered the job to hadn’t accepted, I would have been offered it!! I cannot begin to tell you how frustrating that is to hear but that’s life I guess. Company K was unfortunate as the store where I had the ‘assessment day’ was too far for me to travel and it wouldn’t have been worth it so I asked to be moved to a store closer to where I lived, but this couldn’t be done so I had to turn it down. To be honest I was pretty relieved about Company K as I really didn’t want to work in retail but we are in a recession and I know that there are people worse off then me.

It is now the beginning of November and I really never thought that I would still be without a job; fingers crossed I have a job by 2010…