My previous blog post was about my inability to sell myself, it is therefore perhaps unsurprising that I am fairly unable to perform in an interview environment, on either side of the table. Certainly both being interviewed and interviewing are two things I am deeply uncomfortable with in different ways as I will explore using Schön’s model of reflection.

Using Schön’s model the reflection is broken into two sections, as identified by Jasper: Reflection-in-Action and Reflection-on-Action (Jasper 7). Reflection-in-Action is inherently more emotionally driven, being based in the moment and your reactions to the event at the time. As such these sections are going to be more descriptive of the events and emotionally driven. This is as opposed to Reflection-on-Action, which is what you would consider typical reflection, looking back on the experience and learning from it.

Starting with me being interviewed (as that was chronologically the first thing to happen anyway) and with Reflection-in-Action. The day already didn’t start out great, I was late out of the house (having not eaten and likely still with wet hair from the shower (which with me is a safe enough bet)), then going to the wrong building only to find I was the first person to be interviewed in my group, I was therefore decently flustered going into it. Then being questioned by a group of your peers, surrounded by more groups of your peers doing the same thing in a small room causing a decently loud level of noise isn’t the best way to put you at ease. And that’s entirely without mentioning my distinct lack of preparedness. I had barely been able to find a job (certainly one with an actual job description, most jobs I’d be interested in just coming with a generic ‘Calls for Crew’ post, or that weren’t behind a login or a paywall) until a couple of days before the interview and certainly hadn’t studied it intently.

In the moment I was incredibly uncomfortable, was not especially awake enough to be answering questions, and suffering some frustrating ‘brain entirely empty’ moments that somehow led me at one point to mentioning me being suicidal at around the age of 16. How that came up I could not explain to you, but I mentioned it regardless. Immediately after the interview, I wrote how I felt about how that went in my notes app, it was a one word review: “Bad.”

Reflecting on that Action then, the main differentiation to make would simply be to prepare, and actually follow the Five Steps of an Interview (Preparation, Arrival, Introduction, Rapport Building and Closing) (Block and Betrus N/A E-Book) Certainly waking/getting up earlier would have been a smart move on the day, I could then have taken the time to actually get out of the house earlier and make sure I was going to the correct place and as a result simply be in a more comfortable place going into the interview. I definitely should have studied and thought about the Job Description a lot harder before the interview and in an ideal world would have found something better suited to me but the restraints of the exercise prevented the latter from being the case. The restraints of the exercise as a whole meant the environment was never going to be ideal, your interviewers also not knowing the job/simply being your peers, being surrounded by other people being interviewed/talking (although in my own personal life I did once do a job interview in the middle of a KFC so this wasn’t a complete unknown to me (the job in question was not for a KFC and I did not get it), but there’s not much I could change about that, that’s simply the way it has to be.

Reflecting-in-Action with me as an interviewer, I wasn’t much better with again a lack of preparation being a mark against me. I hadn’t really looked at the other people in my group’s submissions (one of whom’s had for whatever reason not reached me) and the aforementioned ‘brain entirely empty’ moments I have all too frequently meant that coming up with suitable questions was a struggle, especially against other people in my group who had prepared.

I was also uncomfortable with any sort of judgement, in my very brief notes for each of my groupmates the word ‘confident’ is used in every single one, and is used in lieu of any sort of real description.

And that was me evaluating whether they handled being interviewed well, rather than whether they deserved the job. I’ve never been one for peer-marking or even just making up my mind about someone. If someone were to ask me what I think of someone I usually just give a vague ‘I don’t know, they’re fine’ because that’s simply not a capacity in which my brain likes to work.

Reflecting-on-Action then, again preparation would be key here, actually bothering to do what was required and looking at the job descriptions and writing out questions beforehand would have been key to some sort of success here. However, I know, and am more than happy about the fact, that I could not be a successful interviewer if I tried because of how deeply I am unable to think critically when talking about other people, in regards to that my brain is just apathetic and doesn’t care about most people enough to decide whether they are good or bad at something (especially after only seeing them for 15 minutes) and there’s little I can do, reflective or otherwise, that I can see will change this any time soon.

So yeah, me me big bad at interview, should probably prepare next time.

Works Cited

Block, Jay A. and Michael Betrus. “Chapter 10: The Five Steps of an Interview.” Block, Jay A. and Michael Betrus. Great Answers, Great Questions For Your Job Interview. Second Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Business, 2014.

Jasper, Melanie. “What is Reflective Practice?” Jasper, Melanie. Beginning Reflective Practice. Second Edition. Hampshire: Cengage Learning, 2013. 1-31.