WWTBAM Bored

My director let me know today, before the letters go out. She said I nailed the written test, but was weak on answering 2 of the interview questions, and the successful applicant had stronger answers.

She will go over the scoring with me next week, so I can work on strengthening those areas. She said she and the other interviewers KNEW I could do the job, but they had to mark fairly on the questions.

I am bummed.....

All frowns.

You'll get 'em next time!

a1mamacat wrote:My director let me know today, before the letters go out. She said I nailed the written test, but was weak on answering 2 of the interview questions, and the successful applicant had stronger answers.

She will go over the scoring with me next week, so I can work on strengthening those areas. She said she and the other interviewers KNEW I could do the job, but they had to mark fairly on the questions.

I am bummed.....

I'm glad you're getting constructive feedback. I'm sorry it turned out to be necessary. --Bob

<grumble>®

Those audition questions do it every time!

I'm sorry. I'm with Bob, though. At least they are giving you that feedback and seem to be interested in getting you where they think you need to be. (we know you are there already).

Hang in there.

Next time. Sorry about now.

That is about as positive a turndown as you can get.

Those fools!

Very very sorry to hear.

I can sadly tell you from grim experience that job-givers will make up reasons for rejecting great candidates. Well, they don't have to make them up; they have an arsenal to pick from.

I could list them but am not going to right now.

About being weak on interview questions; it helps to know in advance what they want on those, but hard to get it in advance.

Sometimes they don't want the honest answer, but the self-aggrandizing one, sadly. I've been coached to say I did everything singlehandedly that was done as part of a 2-person team, but say that in some places & you'll find they say they're looking for the team player.

Analyzing what you were told, that they knew you could do the job, I'd say someone or ones higher-up are disqualifying you on unwritten reasons; "too old" might be one, sadly. And because they were told to reject you, picking nebulous "weak interview answers" seemed like the "kindest" way to do it.


I have in my possession a very old job evaluation where my supervisor was told in comment on the evaluation by someone above them "she's not perfect; you have to pick something to rate her lower on". So they did.

I'm not above blasting away at employers for age discrimination because I know it happens. However, I'm sure that's not it in Saucy's situation just because someone will be taking the time to go through her weaker areas to help her shore them up.

About a million years ago in my Human Resources life, we had an in-house promotion opportunity, and of the three applicants, two had extensive experience working with the person who had left, so they were very familiar with the job. We gave them a scenario question right out of an incident which had actually occurred and created impacts in both their jobs. One of them gave an exemplary answer because she had thought about and analyzed it, realizing she would have to handle similar situations in the future if she got the job. The other gave a dreadful answer as if she had never heard of such a thing.

I wish I could have provided the same help that Saucy will be getting, but I'd had terrible experiences with fully forthcoming answers when people asked me what they could have done better, and I decided not to make the offer. I told one applicant who came to see me that the way to get a new job was not to blast the management at your old job. This set her off into a defensive rant about horrible treatment of new employees, lack of opportunity to advance, and blah blah blah. I think she wasn't looking for a real opportunity to improve, just a sympathetic shoulder to wail on. Unfortunately for her, I was well acquainted with the employment situation at what happened to be my bank, and I thought new employees were treated very well, and I still do.

OK, rant over. I think Saucy's very lucky to have this opportunity and is getting exactly what she needs to get the position next time.

bastidges. Onward!

SportsFan68 wrote:I'm not above blasting away at employers for age discrimination because I know it happens. However, I'm sure that's not it in Saucy's situation just because someone will be taking the time to go through her weaker areas to help her shore them up.

About a million years ago in my Human Resources life, we had an in-house promotion opportunity, and of the three applicants, two had extensive experience working with the person who had left, so they were very familiar with the job. We gave them a scenario question right out of an incident which had actually occurred and created impacts in both their jobs. One of them gave an exemplary answer because she had thought about and analyzed it, realizing she would have to handle similar situations in the future if she got the job. The other gave a dreadful answer as if she had never heard of such a thing.

I wish I could have provided the same help that Saucy will be getting, but I'd had terrible experiences with fully forthcoming answers when people asked me what they could have done better, and I decided not to make the offer. I told one applicant who came to see me that the way to get a new job was not to blast the management at your old job. This set her off into a defensive rant about horrible treatment of new employees, lack of opportunity to advance, and blah blah blah. I think she wasn't looking for a real opportunity to improve, just a sympathetic shoulder to wail on. Unfortunately for her, I was well acquainted with the employment situation at what happened to be my bank, and I thought new employees were treated very well, and I still do.

OK, rant over. I think Saucy's very lucky to have this opportunity and is getting exactly what she needs to get the position next time.

Well said.

SportsFan68 wrote:I'm not above blasting away at employers for age discrimination because I know it happens. However, I'm sure that's not it in Saucy's situation just because someone will be taking the time to go through her weaker areas to help her shore them up.

About a million years ago in my Human Resources life, we had an in-house promotion opportunity, and of the three applicants, two had extensive experience working with the person who had left, so they were very familiar with the job. We gave them a scenario question right out of an incident which had actually occurred and created impacts in both their jobs. One of them gave an exemplary answer because she had thought about and analyzed it, realizing she would have to handle similar situations in the future if she got the job. The other gave a dreadful answer as if she had never heard of such a thing.

I wish I could have provided the same help that Saucy will be getting, but I'd had terrible experiences with fully forthcoming answers when people asked me what they could have done better, and I decided not to make the offer. I told one applicant who came to see me that the way to get a new job was not to blast the management at your old job. This set her off into a defensive rant about horrible treatment of new employees, lack of opportunity to advance, and blah blah blah. I think she wasn't looking for a real opportunity to improve, just a sympathetic shoulder to wail on. Unfortunately for her, I was well acquainted with the employment situation at what happened to be my bank, and I thought new employees were treated very well, and I still do.

OK, rant over. I think Saucy's very lucky to have this opportunity and is getting exactly what she needs to get the position next time.

Well said.

Knowing that you are valued enough for her to take the time to go over things with you is priceless.

And getting the constructive feedback will help you nail everything next time.

So, short-term bummer = long-term .

Ritterskoop wrote:That is about as positive a turndown as you can get.

Agreed.

mellytu74 wrote:Knowing that you are valued enough for her to take the time to go over things with you is priceless.

And getting the constructive feedback will help you nail everything next time.

So, short-term bummer = long-term .

Again, agreed.

You're being saved for a greater opportunity.

Saucy, I wish they'd groomed you with "how to answer this" before the interview. Maybe their hands were tied; can't show favoritism, that sort of thing. But since they know you & wanted to be able to pick you, they should have sent you to one of those "how to answer this" sessions, then, with an independent session-giver.


But I can say from my own sad experience that what the session says is the right way can be the wrong way if the fix is not in. I've had the experience of being hand-picked by one person & shot down by the person with higher say-so. In that case, the person who picked me had told me all about the job (including stuff that made me scared about being able to do it, as it was back in the days when you had to program your own search tools to go into databases on the code level, depending on how the individual database was constructed; things are much more standardized these days; search tools, already built, take queries in English, for one thing.). So I was told I was rejected because "I hadn't asked enough about the job" at the actual interview.


In that particular case, the people doing the hiring had used me as a straw dog to dummy down the requirements to considering someone without non-classroom experience at the actual task at hand, namely me; then they hired someone equally under-qualified but from outside the organization, who they could pay a lower starting salary to if they wanted, & they didn't have to give a bonus to my recommender for finding me, which was a policy in place at the time.


Of course, that my fear showed through could have done me in too. You've got to go into these things cocky. But not too cocky, that can set people off too.


I've been given instructions about how to answer all kinds of questions, but then when you actually get them sometimes your canned answer just doesn't go so well; you have to be prepared for that too. Somehow.


The loopiest thing I've ever been asked, which I was never warned could happen, was "when you were a child, what did you want to do for work when you grew up". The interviewer, noticing me "processing", helpfully prompted "I wanted to be a railroad conductor". Obviously, they weren't one now.


There's no way around this stuff.

SportsFan68 says:

I wish I could have provided the same help that Saucy will be getting, but I'd had terrible experiences with fully forthcoming answers when people asked me what they could have done better, and I decided not to make the offer. I told one applicant who came to see me that the way to get a new job was not to blast the management at your old job. This set her off into a defensive rant about horrible treatment of new employees, lack of opportunity to advance, and blah blah blah. I think she wasn't looking for a real opportunity to improve, just a sympathetic shoulder to wail on. Unfortunately for her, I was well acquainted with the employment situation at what happened to be my bank, and I thought new employees were treated very well, and I still do.

Just about everybody has read somewhere about not knocking your current or recent employer(s) even if they were & are the Devils from Hell; finding something positive to say about them can be hard, though, & dead air isn't good either. They probably were involved in some project at some point that had a general positive impact in the workplace, probably despite them, so you're supposed to focus on that (not the "despite them" part, obviously).


Also, though I didn't know at the time of that experience I gave above, you are never, never, never supposed to raise up the "dirty issue" of actual monetary recompense, i.e. the projected salary, at the interview. Some jobs post a range, some not even that. When I stupidly asked that at that interview I was in a lordly fashion told "oh, we wouldn't be giving you less than you're making now". And they knew what I was making as I worked for the same place. My jaw obviously dropped. To me the point was to make more, a lot more. But it also would have been a foot-in-the-door to making a lot more, if not for them, eventually, then somewhere, & if offered the job I should have taken it. So, anyway, no-one seeking a job should raise the subject of money until & unless the interviewer does.


Saucy, if you're still speaking to me, board-wise, some of the other advice they give involves these "give us an example of something you did wrong" questions, but of course they really don't want that, they want an example of something you magically turned from wrong to right. Sometimes they do phrase it that way, but not often enough.


Unless you are going to be a surgeon or an EMT, I really don't feel the instant answer under interview stress is a serious way to judge people. But of course I'm never going to be in the situation of being the judge. The example SportsFan68 gives is that rare real-circumstance, where the interviewees should both have thought out "ways this should have gone" on their own before the interview, because it was something in real life that happened to them, & they should have thought it through at the time. I can only guess that the one who failed, unless they really were so dim they'd never thought it through, was under so much stress they actually didn't recognize the analogy to their real-life situation. Usually, these are hypothetical situations given, or if you give an example from your real-life the interviewer doesn't know what really went down. I would still tell the truth, which means picking those rare examples where you were really allowed to make a positive difference, to fix something.