So now that i am jobless, i’ve been applying jobs after jobs. Applying is rather easy. It’s the next thing that hard, the interviews.
I had acouple of interviews since i left my previous office. And it went terrible… ＿|￣|○
I forget how to sell myself. For the past two years, i was surrounded by smart and briliant people in the office with so many great achievements that made me so… small. Not to mention my new friends outside the office are overseas graduate or work for top knotch mnc companies. I was, perhaps am, a nobody in comparison to any of them, just a graduate from a university in Yogyakarta. So to be honest, i was not, or couldn’t feel, any confidence walking into my interviews
So not cool people!! Confidence is an important factor to get a job and i hate myself for not being able to have more confidence.
One of the example was when the panel asked me about my achievements, and i was stoned. I felt like i have never achieved anything. Thirty minutes after the interview finished, i remembered that i worked and studied super hard to earn my two bachelor degrees while writing essays to get my exchange scholarship.
And when they asked me how i managed to study at two majors at the same time, i forgot how i paid so much attention to my schedules at the beginning of every semester, just to make sure that i didn’t have two classes at the same time. I forgot how i ran from one class to another just to make sure i signed the attendance lists, and then catch up the lesson later at night.
Instead of answering that, i went blank…
I guessed that led to my other mistake: i focused on the wrong practices of interview. Unlike two years ago, this time I aim to work on NGOs instead of corporate companies. And prior to the interviews i practiced to answer some questions I faced during my corporate interviews.
You know, questions like:
-why do you quit your last job?
-why do you wanna work in an NGO?
-this NGO focuses on environment, how will you do this job with no background on that field?
And none of those questions were asked during my interviews.
Apparently they asked different kinds questions from those in corporates, though few questions were similar.
IMO, these NGO workers focus more on my personality, my story, instead of how I can benefit to the company. They really read my resume all to the tiny details and asked me to share my experiences at that time.
It’s funny how I couldn’t handle a relax interviews better than i dealt with formal interviews.
