To ask for interview advise, I've lost my job because I'm shit!

[RinkeyDinkey]

I've just had to apply for my own job, my manager thought it was a given that I'd breeze the interview despite me telling them again and again how shit I am in an interview. Loads of people applied, someone else got it because my mind went blank in the interview and I just garbled pure garbage. My boss phoned me crying as I couldn't possibly be offered the job now as my score was rock bottom, it was acknowledged that I was the best candidate and can do it stood on my head. My staff are in bits, I can't stop crying, what a mess.

I thought I would be ok this time, I spent weeks and weeks preparing, I had all the acronyms in my head to remember things, it went so badly, I could even do the 'tell us about yourself' properly. I don't really get stressed and was only nervous by the usual standard.

I've now got to find myself another job asap, wtf do I do now if I can't do an interview (it happens every time)?

Write and say you would dont feel you presented yourself as well as you would have liked and ask for a chance to do it again.

Then get help from an interview coach. Good luck.

I’m sorry you’ve had this experience,it’s a lot of pressure to be under
Take some time reflect on your options
Stay in organisation. Different internal role or secondment
Leave organisation
Locum
Ask for support,mentoring,training to allow you to make choices

Don’t dwell on the what ifs

You also have skills you can take to another job

Luckystars,it simply doesn’t work like that.its not fair to the candidate appointed
No op can’t request another go at interview,she knows that
Unfortunately,in the interviews the op skills/experience wasn’t evident

RinkeyDinkey, in the mid1990s I applied for a temporary civil service job that I had been doing for the previous two years in my University Summer Hols. The Manger knew I was the best candidate, but they had just introduced competency based application and I failed the interview. One month later, the successful candidate had failed at the job and they called me to fill in.

Since then this has become the model for all public service applications and it doesn't guarantee the best person, just the best bullshitter.

Please do not lose confidence in yourself. Perhaps try to get someone else to reflect your competencies back at you? So many women internalise 'don't boast', 'don't show off', 'be modest'.

It's not really enough to say that you failed the interview because you weren't prepared enough.

Surely you knew what they'd ask etc so you could bring in notes?

Really you need to work on your interview skills now for the next job as you've admitted here that they're your downfall.

I used to practice with friends/family my interview questions and answers and then write down and go over again and again until I got them right.

I also tried beta blockers as nervous (had to do tests) but found that made it worse. Bach flower remedies can help but also confidence in your skills etc is best.

Yes, going off the interview they might as well have been sat there with their mouths hanging open thinking wtf! It started so well, I managed to get one foot in front of the other. Ah well, it's a kick up the arse and it will make me good at interviews if nothing else.

Ilovecherries has good advice re finding someone skilled in competency based interviewing and STAR system, my SIL who's an ace in all that coached me for a few interviews until I got a job but she pointed out what they may ask, all the STAR stuff and quizzed me back and forwards (over a coffee!) until I got it.

Once you know how they interview and know how they throw in curveballs it isn't hard to play them at their own game.

Just take a pause. At the moment you are embarrassed and ashamed of your performance. However, I wouldn't jump ship into non public sector employment at the moment. Those jobs are about as safe as employment can get and usually offer the very best pensions too. Perhaps take a few days off when they announce the new person, hunker down and look for a job in a different department or another secondment. Don't let this interview define you.

Apply for a job as a cleaner. The interview may be easier, and the job may be simpler. I was a Night Porter in a hotel once.

It can happen. I have volunteered for a charity in a professional capacity for many years. A while ago the opportunity arose for a paid role which I applied for and I didn’t even reach the interview stage. My manager told me it was because )in my ignorance of the selection procedure) my application wasn’t detailed enough to reach a required number of points. . The person who eventually got the job knew the process inside out and submitted a textbook application that scored very highly and secured them an interview and ultimately the role.

I know and my manager knows that my actual work is way better than that of the selected applicant but because my application didn’t score the points I was automatically out of the running.

It’s tough but as a charity they have to prove the ‘best’ person was given the job and sometimes box ticking is the only way they can eveidence that.

I knew you were public sector as soon as I read your post. It’s gutting for you OP. I always say that public sector recruitment isn’t about who is good enough to do the job, it’s about who knows how to play the game of recruitment.

I’ve interviewed people I knew were amazing at the job (and already doing it) and they didn’t pass, and I’ve interviewed people I’ve known will be absolutely shit at it but they’re really good at interviews. I understand completely what’s happened to you.

Can you ask people to give you mock interviews? I do these for people periodically, it can help with the nerves if you’ve done it before. Ask if you can take notes in, some allow it some don’t. Try and think of new ways to remember the info rather than just memorising - for instance I use my fingers as a prompt - if I want to remember five things to talk about on a certain subject, I allocate one point per finger and count them off as I talk.

Give yourself a few days to get over it, then make a game plan. You’re obviously thought very highly of, so I’m sure your managers etc will do whatever they can to help you.

Hope you don't mind me giving you my opinion. I would be brave and appeal, not with the intention of getting your job back, but to learn how they viewed you and your responses in the interview. You might learn some valuable information that will help you avoid what went wrong for your next interview. If its possible to find that information out on an informal level by talking to your manager, but instead of asking why you didn't do well, which might put your manager in an awkward position, ask what it is they think you could do better when going for another job interview. If I were cynical, I might be forgiven for thinking someone else had already been earmarked for that position.

To help in your next interview, if loosing your thoughts is a real problem and you go blank, consider hypnotherapy. It can be very effective. My daughter had to do a presentation in front of 8 people for her nursing degree. She was terrified before she even went in. She went in and just went blank, then became very self-conscious and it got worse. She made that many mistakes she failed badly. I sent her to a hypnotherapist for anxiety/stress and although she thought she got nothing out it, went to the next presentation, was scared to death before she went in, went, and the moment she uttered her first word, all her stress and anxiety left her and they couldn't stop her talking. she passed and had no mind blocks. Amazing things brains.

Sorry you lost your position though. As much as we like to think we do a great job and we are valued for our contribution, companies don't have consciences or give any credit to loyalty and hard work.

Ask if you could write the question down and make a few bullet points for answer.i find this helps calm me down, organise my thoughts and structure my answer better

How long have you been working there? They need a legal reason to dismiss you, what is it? Being crap at interviews isn't a good enough reason

I’ve seen it and it can be brutal. This sort of approach works fine for grad schemes or other jobs where there are gazillions of candidates but when you have someone doing the job booted out it is harsh.

I’ve seen it a few times. The worst one was where someone had been doing and developing the job, wrote the job description around her own skills and what she’d been doing but the way she wrote it upped the banding so she had to apply for the job formally. She lost our at interview. It was awful for her personally and I suspect they might have used the interview as a way to get rid but she was treated appallingly.m really.

She’s not been dismissed she has unsuccessfully applied for her own post
Completely legal and signed off by unions and employer

*'It was acknowledged' that you were the best candidate but you still didn't get the job?

Someone is lying to you.*

Not at all. A lot of people really struggle with interviews and get so panicked because of nerves that they can't think straight.

A colleague of mine joined on a trainee grade and was brilliant at the job from day 1. He had no fewer than 8 tries at getting a promotion to the next grade, and always fluffed it. Everyone knew he was brilliant, right up to the Chief Exec, but the strict points-scoring interview system meant they couldn't appoint him.

In the end, he was offered the opportunity to "act up" while someone took a sabbatical. They didn't come back, and because he'd been in the post for over a year, they were able to appoint him without interview.

This is their failure, not yours.

Do the bare minimum for handover. Next step your boss whines and cries at you, just give her an icy stare. She let you down. It's not your job to make her feel better about this.

I'm having a meeting on Monday with a senior manager on the interview panel, he will give me a complete rundown on everything. He did try to tell me on the phone later that day after the interview (I was last) but I couldn't take anything in.

I'm not being dismissed, I'm presuming I have the option of going back to my substantive role (will be managed by new person and will be kicking out a really good member of staff) or I think he will offer to move me, not sure yet. I will have options, all is not lost. I was just sad to lose that role. Hey ho, there are people much worse off than me.

Someone else mentioned hypnotherapy, I'm not sure if I'd like that.

User That's literally what happened to me.

Tell senior prep that you'd repeatedly expressed concerns about the interview but that you were given so advice or support. Get that on record.

Megan,op can ask for feedback and copies of interview notes
Which when she is ready can be useful process (maybe with a high ouch factor)
Hypnotherapy is a good suggestion

It sucks. I can think of several times where the best candidate couldn't be appointed because, however hard we tried we couldn't get them to answer the questions sufficiently to get enough points. It must have been awful for the candidates, but we were pretty gutted as the clinicians who would have been working with them. But there are standardised processes to make damn sure it isn't just the old boys' network. And probably have to be. But being on the wrong side of it is crap.

I think you have to be quite suggestible for hypnotherapy to work. I tried it many many years ago to stop smoking, it didn't work. Nicorette mints worked instead. They'd be less useful for interviews though.

It would be a dismissal if she didn't have the option to go back to her substantive role. Sorry, I missed that part on the op.