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Re: bouncing back from interview disappointment (WAS: Advice needed for an upcoming interview)
Subject:Re: bouncing back from interview disappointment (WAS: Advice needed for an upcoming interview) From:Matthew Helmke <matthew -at- matthewhelmke -dot- com> To:Techwr-l <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 22 May 2013 08:46:48 -0500
By the time you get to an interview, what is usually being evaluated is NOT
whether you can do the job. Everyone already believes you can. Instead,
interviewers are looking to see if you personally will be a good fit in the
current team with which you would work. This involves personality and how
smoothly you interact with those involved. Sometimes, ideal candidates from
a work-quality standpoint are just not a good fit from a
personality-fit-to-team standpoint.
Just keep looking.
On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 8:38 AM, Anonymous <anonymous -at- techwhirl -dot- com> wrote:
> Please post replies directly to the list, as they cannot be forwarded to
> the OP
>
> First of all, I want to thank everyone that offered support, encouragement,
> and advice on this thread. Because everyone was so nice and positive (and
> obviously for more selfish reasons), I was hoping to close out this
> interview thread on a positive note, but, unfortunately, I did not get
> either job. I felt like both interviews went reasonably well. Apparently
> however, that was a matter of my own misperception. Several requests for an
> explanation of the apparent mismatch between what they saw in my resume,
> samples, and, in one case, completed questionnaire and what they saw and
> heard in the interview were met with unhelpful euphemisms or long-ago
> generated boilerplate. "Not the best fit." "Many candidates did not have
> the specific experience..." One place did mention something about wanting
> someone more experienced, and, well, I have only been doing this for a
> couple of years, so I can't really argue that, I suppose. I also suppose
> I'll never really know the real "why" of it. Which, of course, makes the
> disappointment and frustration even worse (to say nothing of the blow to
> self-confidence).
>
> These were the first two tech writing jobs I've really pursued with serious
> intent and what I thought was a reasonably good chance of actually getting
> them. I tried to follow people's advice, I researched, I went in with ideas
> and questions and things to say about their public-facing documentation,
> about project management and documentation, about software development in
> general and documentation. I felt good and relaxed and confident. I talked
> to people I knew at one company to try to gain even more insight. And
> yet--I've come up empty. Thankfully, I have a position right now, so it
> doesn't affect my livelihood. But it still stings.
>
> How doe one bounce back from this kind of disappointment? What can be
> learned from it? Am I barking up the wrong career tree?
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--
Matthew Helmke
matthew -at- matthewhelmke -dot- com
Author of Ubuntu Unleashed, Humor and Moroccan Culture, and Nowhere Else to
Turn
Coauthor of VMware Cookbook and The Official Ubuntu Book
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