I didn’t realise that I wasn’t dressed up for this occasion until I saw another girl in the office who is applying for the position as well looked elegant. It was nice to see her look differently, but what the look would matter? I gave it a pass

But I admit that I felt a bit nervous. The feeling lasted until 10 minutes before I finally got the question list. It was a structured interview which I like very much. There were 7 questions covering all sort of things, from experience, skills applied in the previous job and the new position, analyzing the hypothetic scenarios, OH&S discussion to using a white board to explain how to kick off a new initiative funded by the government. It was pretty job-oriented. I wondered if I could have given the answers on the right track if I hadn’t had acted this position in the past 4 months.

But I liked this way, that’s how I succeed in the current job. I hate people asking something quite general but not necessarily related to the position. Not that I dislike the open question or any surprise, it’s just that I believe many of those questions can not justify and detect the essential skills the position is required. And it’s much better than sitting there guessing what’s going through those panel persons’ minds at that time. And it makes more sense on a fair go based selection for all applicants.

I felt not bad when sitting there answering the questions one by one. And it was a bit strange to talk to two of the panel persons, who are also my current supervisors, in a manner as if we didn’t know each other at all Another member of panel was a guy, who was also on my interview panel for the last job. He also knows me although he works in another council’s section. Sometimes I happened to meet him somewhere in the council’s building, he would ask me “Annie, how’s your job going”. It’s been eight months since then, now I guess he realised that I am stepping on something new. I wondered if how he thinks about 8 months. Was it too short or too long for him?

My interview only went on for 35 minutes, much shorter than another girl in the office, who had the interview right before me. We are not opponents at all as I was going for the full time job and she applied for the part time one. We wished “good luck” each other before she went, and I can see her trying to calm herself down by deep breathes, but still had a subtle trembling on the way to the interview room. It looks like getting nervous on this occasion is quite common for whoever is keen to get the job.

I am that type of person. Once getting into the thing, the fears, pressure and the tension all disappears. I enjoyed that moment, not the moment before, and normally, I would have a reasonable performance, usually not under my expectation.

They said I will get the result by the end of next week as there is an official council’s procedure (reference check, paperwork passing on to the bigger manager till HR) need to go through before disclosing any result. But take a guess! What’s the difference on the matter of getting to know the result between internal applicant and external applicant? Hehe….of course I know the answer. I will let you know next week