I had an interview this morning with a public library in the area. It went fairly well -- the weird thing was, I wasn't that nervous. I mean, I was nervous, but not to the extent that I frequently am before an interview; I suppose this is a product of the fact that I am, in fact, currently employed. I stammered a bit, especially at the beginning, but I improved a great deal, particularly when they asked questions related to customer service. Frankly, that's where my experience is. The one question that completely threw me asked about what was on the best-sellers list -- I had completely no clue. I ended up laughing and said the only thing that came to mind was The DaVinci Code, which I knew wasn't right. But I guess my feeling is that if that's all it took for me to be passed up for employment, I didn't have much of a chance anyways. Once I'm hired by a library, I will be concerned with librarian things: as it is now, most of my time is spent trying to describe the English language in the clearest, simplest ways, or in trying to figure out how to get Spanish-speakers to pronounce the 'th' sound correctly. I'm pretty far removed from best-seller lists at this time.One other thing is that the interviewers were not allowed to give me any feedback on any of my answers, nor were they allowed to rephrase confusing questions. The latter was only a problem with one question, which I think I answered fairly poorly, but I can't imagine how else I could've answered. The lack of feedback, while I understand it, meant that I wasn't able to establish the sort of rapport with the interviewers that I have in my best interviewers in the past. Which, I suppose, may be the point. But it also meant that the questions were standard, and had nothing to do with clarifying my background at all. Which felt a little...off.
On the way there, I discovered that the best "getting ready to be interviewed" song is apparently the 12" mix of Donna Summer's "Last Dance". It's odd, because I never liked that song much, but my iPod was shufflin', and it came up, and all was right with the world. Who knew?
4 comments:
Delicious! If they don't give you the job, tell me the address and I'll go round there and kick 'em in!
Best seller list? Did they have difficulty thinking up questions?
You're fabulous Bill. I don't think this library was. You're destined for better things.
It was a strange interview all around. I tend to agree about being destined for better things, but I think I need to work somewhere a little less fabulous first, if only to gain some experience.
And look for the library's address in your e-mail. ;)
Nothing received yet.
We don't know if I don't have a job yet! Give it time, young grasshopper.
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