The Interview

The Interview

My heart beat was beating faster than normal, and beating faster and louder by the minute like the stompings of a pursuing T-Rex in the movie Jurassic Park. Heck, it was beating so hard at times that my heart felt like jumping out.

Dupp.. dapp.. dup.. dapp…

My state of mind was close to being chaotic. All the facts that I had cramped into my head in the previous week or so were a jumbled mess, and I realised that I was feeling even less confident about the ordeal I was about to go through at that moment then when I firsrt started preparing myself for it. Suddenly, I couldn’t even remember even the stuffs which were supposed to be simple, and belatedly realised that in my attempt to learn stuffs which I wasn’t so good at, I had neglected the stuffs that I do everyday, and as a result risk looking like an incompetent buff who’s been on the job for so long and still didn’t know thoroughly what’s required of me.


This wasn't in the job description!!

The above is the ordeal that I went through in anticipation of my job assessment interview on Tuesday morning.

The job interview, as I’ve mentioned before, is a job assessment process to evaluate whether or not I’m fit to do the job I’ve been doing as a senior executive for the last 5 years. I know it sounds funny. I would think I would have been kicked out of this place if I wasn’t able to do the job for even 3 months, let alone 5 years. But hey, it’s the company’s policy, and you either put up with it or leave, Dilbert-like though it may be.

Looking back in retrospect, I think the interview went quite ok. I wouldn’t say it was brilliant though. My answer to most of the interview questions were at best basic, and in some instances, needed further prompting from my interviewers. Have you ever had that feeling that you could probably have given a better answer, or phrased your answer better, just after you’ve answered a question? That happened to me a lot on Tuesday that by the time we got to the end of the session, I felt too immuned with such situation that I just stopped cringeing anymore whenever it happened again. It’s like developing an anti-body to bee stings after you’ve been stung too many times.

In my opinion, I find the questions to be a bit too technical to be relevant, especially in the context of day to day work. You can say it was quite heavy on the theory side. Questions like definitions of some terms in the accounting standards, and getting asked to elaborate on a few number of standards of my choice. On a day to day application at work however, you can count with the fingers in one hand people who could actually remember all the standards and accounting definitions by hard. Most people (me included) know the general basic characteristics of what is required, and if further references need to be made, then would we refer to the standards literatures available.

Oh well…

On the bright side, the sensation after such a nerve-wrecking experience is one of great relief. Situations like preparing yourself for an interview or exams are always nerve-wrecking, and the nerve dangling experience lies both in the anticipation and the event itself. And in some cases, the anticipation proves the worse of the two in terms of what it does to your composure. The result of the interview will be out in a month’s time, and at this moment at least, I’m just glad that I’m done and over with it.

Pray for me that I’ll make it will ya.