For the past two years, I have lived/worked as a stay at home mom. My husband and I have had many discussions and feel it’s best if I begin working again. I recently had my first interview which coincidentally was the first job I applied to.
Fast-forwarding…
I had my interview Friday. It was awful. I tried to prepare myself – went shopping for a padfolio, new shoes, jewelry, a blouse, and even a cute new Nine West handbag. Apparently a trendy wardrobe is not enough! Okay, but joking aside, I did read over a few “common interview questions” and thought about the answers I would give. I printed my resume on fancy resume paper, stocked my purse with plenty of pens and continued going over questions and answers I might give.
I’m not even going to go into the details about how it was 104° outside and I was beginning to sweat before I even stepped foot indoors. I won’t tell you how I thought the interview was a traditional one-on-one interview when it was, in fact, an interrogation interview filled with lieutenants, captains, directors and supervisors. I will say that as prepared as I thought I was, I obviously was not. I could not believe how nervous I became. It was ridiculous-- silly actually.
It’s obvious I was not as prepared as I thought I was. I do have anxiety and I thought that preparing daily would only cause me to worry and obsess, which is why I waited until the last minute to really prepare for the interview. I don’t think you can ever be over-prepared. Next time I won’t make the same mistake. After I arrived home from my interview, I did an online search for “thank you letters” to send. I thought, somehow, it could make up for my nervous/embarrassing interview (yeah, it was that bad). While searching I came across this AMAZING website/blog called Ask a Manager.
{Photo Credit: Askamanager.org}
Ask a Manager is written by Alison – a manager, turned consultant, turned pure genius. I’m so glad I found her blog, but I’m upset I didn’t find it sooner! She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s honest and she knows her stuff. If you’re looking for a job, definitely browse around her site for useful tips and info. If you have a job – still check it out. Her blog is full of information for both the employed and unemployed.
A few helpful posts that may interest you:
Should recent grads have a resume objective?
The 10 interview questions you’re most likely to be asked
Should I include a job I was fired from on my resume?
Okay…. that’s it. The more I talk about this, the more depressed I seem to get. I’m about 88% sure I did not get this job. I may talk more about it later. But it was bad and I do not want to discuss it right now. Go check out Ask a Manager, and I’m sure you will find something useful!
