My Bad Interview
Now that Christmas is fading into the distance and interviews are fast approaching I thought I’d add my story to the mix and tell you about my interview day. Hopefully knowing what to expect can put some people at ease.
My older sister lives in London so I got the train up the night before and spent the evening frantically practising questions and interview style with my poor sister. One trick that I found most useful was writing about each of my experiences in the style of STARR then preparing typical interview questions on slips of paper. I would pull a question out of a cup and practise saying my answer out loud. I discovered that converting paper to words was a lot harder than expected.
On arrival at the venue I found that I was half an hour early, typical! I settled myself into a Costa across the street and tried to calm my nerves. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to find the reception or they wouldn’t know where the interviews were being held or that I’d get lost on my way to the correct room. None of these things happened. The receptionist gave me a visitors badge and clear directions to where the interviews were being held. Not only that but she smiled warmly and wished me good luck. I found my way to the right floor and followed the frequent and blaringly obvious signs to the NHS GMTS interviews.
Once in the correct room, with a name badge firmly stuck to my dress and cup of tea going cold in front of me I started talking to a current trainee who informed me that I was in fact very early and the interviewees for the previous session of interviews hadn’t even gone in yet. Fantastic, more time to sit and worry. The trainee was lovely, asking if I had any questions about the scheme etc. I tried to think of my most intelligent questions but at the end of the day it was just nice to talk to someone about normal topics to distract myself.
The current trainees take you directly to the door of your interview so there is literally no way you can get lost on that journey. Once in the room I managed to bash my leg into the table, almost spilling an entire jug of water whilst trying to recover my stupidity with some lame joke (not recommended).
On leaving the interview I found that I was the first one out, I took that as a bad sign. I hadn’t used half of the experiences I prepared; I took that as another bad sign. I had stuttered over a few of my answers, yet another bad sign! Yet here I am, on the scheme.
Try to stay calm and good luck!