Week Five - Still climbing...but where to?

Another week down, another week with no resolution. This last week offered no real conclusions at all which made it the longest week so far. Three further interviews, all latter stages but as I write at 9:50am on the following Monday, I have no further feedback from any of the three or from the one I'm still waiting to hear back from from the back end of week three! Usually no news is bad news at the beginning of the process but I'm hoping that isn't the case the further along in the process you are. Doesn't make it any less frustrating though and every buzz or ring of my phone sparks a nervous excitement that this could be "the call".

I did get two rejections last week. One a lovely automated message which has tried to not come across as automated but failed when it included (part-time or full-time) alongside the job title still! That made me chuckle! [INSERT NAME] [INSERT JOB TITLE] ooops!

The second rejection came after a first interview and goes to show the fine lines that candidates are working to...and how hard it must be for hiring managers to make decisions, to be fair. I knew coming out of the interview that it wasn't my best. Not the skills side of things or building a rapport, but answering questions that fitted to that particular brands corporate values. I had prepared answers and examples prior to the interview but the specificity of examples requested threw me on one or two occasions! "Can you give me an example of where you've shown appreciation to members of a team that enhanced overall performance of that team". This for me is everyday as a leader so trying to shoehorn a specific example in, using the STAR framework just didn't work for me and I ended up blathering on about something trying to get my head around what I believe is general manners, professionalism and leadership. I ballsed that bit up and therefore wasn't at all surprised to get the feedback that skills and personality wise I was a good fit but I just didn't deliver on the corporate values! Tough crowd, but as I said, people have to make decisions and if that is the margins then fair enough - you can't win them all. Gone are the days where just having the skills for a job is enough it seems.

Another thing that struck me this week was how unprepared companies are to sell their own business to candidates. I wrote before in my 2017 article about how important it is for companies to 'sell' working for them, yet when I ask the question interviewers always seem a little uncomfortable and don't have an coherent and thought out answer. This is likely to be more important in the current climate as there are many people like me who are unattached so could have the possibility of multiple offers at a time. Wishful thinking perhaps on my behalf but it happened before for me and with four live roles still, it could happen again. All the roles I've got on the table offer me something the others don't so I could have a tricky decision to make. Therefore, I'm keen to put some emphasis back on the companies to convince me that joining them is the right thing to do. Sad to see that nothing much has changed since 2017.

I have to write about my experience on Thursday afternoon! I was invited to an assessment centre for a role after a couple of rounds of screening chats. This took me back to my graduate days and for some reason made me so much more nervous than with a regular interview. It was a four hour session of intro presentations, group exercise and team presentation and 1-2-1 interview. It was mentally exhausting but in the end it was fun and something a bit different to break up the sameness of every other day. The group exercise was a challenge to say the least. Working with 2 total strangers, over Teams with other strangers watching silently from the wings to assess! From the first second one of the other candidates was straight in to take the leadership role, her tactics were clear so instead of battle it out, I decided to take the 'chief of staff' role and try to direct and course correct from the front bench. I made some valuable contributions I felt as we tried to pull together a marketing strategy in an hour. Frankly, I would have done a better job on my own but having to work as a team, contribute as an individual and work towards a collective goal meant that the final output was patchy at best. I guess time will tell whether my approach worked or not. The 1-2-1 interview seemed to go really well with the interviewer parting the conversation with the words "hope to see you soon" so not sure how else to take that other than positively...seems it might all come down to the impression I made in the group task.

My final thought for the week comes from my second interview last week. I had the rather awkward scenario of an interviewer asking a question that didn't really feel appropriate to me and to at least one of the other interviewers on the call too! I won't go in to detail but it revolved around gender and my approach to leadership. It was so awkward that I actually started to second guess myself and had to almost force myself to remain true to my beliefs and not give an answer that I thought the interviewer might be fishing for??!! To be honest I'm not sure she knew what she was trying to ask and got herself in a bit of a tangle. For me, I treat everyone I work with equally and professionally. I am also emotionally intelligent enough to know that you can't treat everyone the same and getting to know your team and colleagues as individuals is critical to your success as a leader - this is one of my strongest attributes I believe. I'll put that one down to an awkward error of judgement by the interviewer but others could have taken it far more seriously than I did.

Over and out for another week, wish me luck and shout with any other opportunities. It has gone very quiet out there so the coming months look worrying should I fail to convert any of the live ops in this incredibly competitive world!

Phil