There were several awkward pauses in my phone interview today with the editor of the Desert Dispatch. All on my part. I've had my fair share of interviews and I felt pretty comfortable going into this one - I knew what to expect and knew my lines. I expected to talk about journalism, why I wanted to report for their newspaper, and stuff like that....
So it threw me off a bit when the editor opened -after the typical formalities -by asking me, "What's been your biggest challenge and how have you overcome it?" Then followed straight by, "What are you most proud of?" But let me back up here. Most newspaper interviews, in my experience up 'til now, aren't interested in your life story/world view/idealism. They want to figure out if you can write a story competently and quickly, and that's what I've grown accustom to discussing. So when the editor lobbed his first question at me, I naturally followed up by saying he meant relating to journalism, right?
Wrong - he meant life. In general. Gah. I sputtered for a few moments and then came up with some BS answer that, I think, didn't reek too much of BS. Whew, I thought, dodged that one ok...but then the next 15 minutes proceeded to be more life-y stuff where I just had to scrap together answers off the top of my brain. It was not off to a good start.
Luckily it got much better once we started to talk about more concrete relevant things such as past internships, experiences, stories, etc. I felt like we were back in familiar territory. I have to say, though, I felt really outta practice and rusty today, and I think it showed. It's been two months since my internship ended and my brain's already starting to turn mushy along the edges........oh no.....moan.
After about 80 minutes of talking, we ended and he left me with hope that I might get a second round interview sometime in the coming days. The final decision will be made by the end of next week, he said. After I hung up, I stood up and walked into my room and had to lie down for a bit and recover from Mushy Brain Syndrome.
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4 comments:
i suck at interviews. i think my problem is i'm too honest. i don't say what they want to hear, i just answer the question. is that bad? i keep hoping that someday someone will just hire me based on my honesty.
@ enoch: You probably shouldn't ever be a salesman and I shouldn't either!
I've debated between whether phone or in-person interviews are better. The stakes seem to be higher when BS-ing in person, so in this case I guess it played in my favor.
haha i agree, stakes are much higher in person. the place i'm at now does stuff along the lines of wine shipping compliance (say whaaaat? haha) so the Prez (yes the man himself) asked me what i thought about wine.....i totally didn't see that question coming. i still don't remember what i said but i clearly remember using every ounce of my strength to not smack myself in the back of the head, it was that bad. i cringe just thinking of it.
those questions sound like the college app essay questions i had to answer for GT. o_O
and guess what i put down? time management! hah!! little did i know, time management had another meaning in college..
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