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)?

I think interview practice will be a key thing, but see if you can find people you don't know very well to practise with as well. That will give you the unnerving interview element that you just don't get with practising with friends and family.

Well at least you have options re going back to your old job etc.

I'd let the dust settle over the weekend and have a good think about whether you want to see agencies to apply for government or non government work or whether you want to return to your old job.

I agree re hypnotherapy - it can be very hit and miss and didn't work for me either. It sounds as if your confidence has taken a bashing over this and that's never nice but you need to work (in my opinion) on acing interviewers and ignoring well intentioned people who sometimes tell you what you want to hear (re aceing your interview!) . Yoga and mindfulness can help too.

Just to clarify, the only person's fault I didn't get the job is mine for getting brain freeze. The interview panel had their hands tied, no room for manoeuvre there and I'm only angry at myself. I prepared and had prepared in all the right areas and it would have been fine if I hadn't frozen up. This is historic, I do it every single time I get an interview. Anyway I've had a lovely offer of help and I'll have to see what options I have next week.

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.

Surely you're not allowed to ask for help preparing your interview? I had to apply for my own job a couple of years back and wasn't allowed to approach or discuss it with anyone who was involved in the recruitment process between the job being advertised and the interview taking place.

Substantive post?were you acting up to a different role
You’re not kicking anyone out a role presumably they filled your post whilst you acted up
Now isn’t the time to get tied up in knots about the person who was in your substantive post

As you say you have options, no rash decisions until you consider all options

Waytoo,not sure what your point is it seems a bit blame shifting. The employer has a responsibility to stage a fair process based interview. And it’s in op best interest to adequately prepare. Now if every candidate except op were offered preinterview skills workshop etc,then yes she’d have a case. Poor performance at interview is the op responsibility. In fact it seems there was perhaps an assumption that op would perform well

There was no other way except interview, I think I was mentally preparing her for my departure as I knew what was coming.

Don’t get over involved in the other workers situation,it’s not your role to “prepare them” for eventualities
You’ve said it’s a recurrent issues,you’re v able bit don’t perform at interview
When you’re ready Have a think how to address that,not immediately maybe it’s too raw

I read some years ago that interviews were found in research to be a poor way to pick the right person for a job, and a far better way was to get them to try out the job for a while..

That's what happens where I work, people get offered secondments to try out another role. Unfortunately, this is open to abuse. There have been several occasions where people who are crap but suck up to certain managers, get secondment opportunities. It's bloody annoying when staff see people who are useless at a job but great at smarming get moved into roles where they become more and more useless.

Being interviewed for a job you already do though is shit.

Being interviewed for a job you already do though is shit. Why?
Organisations and jobs change esp in public sector
Sounds like she was acting up, so knew it’d happen

Because if someone is already doing a good job, why bother? What a waste of money, and what a terrible impact on morale for staff who perform well.

If they aren't doing a good job then there should be systems in place to deal with that and ultimately they can be sacked.

OP can you clarify something?

You say you've 'lost your job' - but that you are on a secondment from a permanent post.

So that either means:

• you have a job to go back to OR
• you will be offered redundancy

Either way, no need for immediate panic. If it's the latter, perhaps negotiate some interivew training as part of your package.

As I live in N Ireland, this type of stuff is completely normal in every organisation, or at least every organisation that employs more than a couple of people. I remember the HR officer in one company I worked for telling me, when I asked for feedback, that her job wasn't to recruit the best person for the job, her job was to recruit the person who was able to tell her that they were the best person for the job.

Doing Good job is subjective and can be abused to maintain internal existing candidates
Certainly historically candidates did get or maintain jobs by who they are or know. Or by virtue of being the current post holder
What if there is another candidate who can do a better job? Shouldn’t they be appointed
Interview is a way to test competencies,not infallible,but doesn’t rely on presumption the current post holder is doing a good job
There are v few jobs not subject to change or review

What if there is another candidate who can do a better job? Shouldn’t they be appointed

No, not unless the person already doing a job for several years is failing and eventually sacked or about to be. How can anyone have any job security, confidence or morale under a system where they have to reapply for their job every few years however good they are? It's absolutely appalling and treating employees like robots instead of human beings and valued employees.

I've had similar. "I know you can do the job really well but someone else gave better answers to the questions." They even told me that some people interview really well, but that's no real indication of whether they're good at the job...

I actually think internal interviews are harder, because your have to sit there and pretend you don't know the people who are interviewing you and speak to them as if you've never met before. I found that really, really difficult. They gave me a job anyway a year later, when they found a loophole that allowed them to appoint me without interview. I'm great at my job but I suck in interviews.

fox I was seconded, I was told initially that if all went well with the secondment then I would be made permanent. As it happened, the job changed massively and had to be regraded at the next level up which triggered it having to be advertised. I don't have any problem with that at all, I get it. When I posted this morning I was a bit of a mess and all over the place, please don't think I'm drip feeding. I was essentially just looking for advise on improvement on interview technique (I think lol), anyway I've had lots of really good advise that I'm very grateful for.

Exactly that. It just means that people who are more confident in interviews are appointed but many not be as good at the actual job, so you don't end up with the jobs being done better at all. Plus recruitment is expensive, why would you go through all that regularly if you don't have to?

Robotic exactly!

Ah I see, thanks for clarifying, OP. I think then actually having an interview was appropriate in those circumstances, though I'm sorry you lost out in the process and people can certainly be good at interviews and not the job and vice versa.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2018/03/13/ten-ways-to-get-over-your-fear-of-interviews/amp/

Flori,a face to face competency based interview isn’t reducing people to robots
What a ridiculous thing to say,and bears no relation to the situation
Keeping people in post,just because they’re there,and to avoid potentially stressful interviews isn’t best way to maintain good skills base

Op is clearly skilled,she has options

Good article above, with some helpful generic tips.

I cometely fucked up an interview once, but the next time the position came up, i got the job. You can learn a lot from this, keep your job and try again next time.
It hurts but get back up again.

I went for an interview years ago for a job above what I was doing, I knew I wouldn’t get it as I didn’t have the experience, was a lot younger than all the other candidates, but thought it would be good experience to see how that type of interview worked.
They interviewed 16 candidates, and I got the call to say I didn’t get the job. No surprise! But a surprise did come- I actually came in second when they added all the points up. I was offered the same job but in a different area, which I couldn’t take due to my children. They done two rounds of interviews for that area and didn’t appoint so came back to me with increased salary etc. Again couldn’t take it. After the third round and a doubling of salary, I agreed to be interviewed. Was offered the job and I accepted. Within an hour I had a phone call to say they had done a big of a swop and gave me the original position I applied for- where I lived!
After starting I was talking with my director and said I was surprised being offered the job due to my inexperience etc, compared to the other candidates. Apparently it was when I high lighted key areas that money could be saved, explained how I could save it and how quickly it could be done. They figured I would be well into that process when a new candidate was still learning the ropes. (For the record I did it in 3 months!).
So I think when you do competency based interviews you never knew where they are going to go. As you say once you have personnel involved there’s no guarantee what the outcome will be. Unfortunately some people interview better than others.
I will say I was head hunted once for a national organisation. 5 different panels interviewed each candidate and done various ‘activities’ throughout the day. The were 4 of us candidates. We had a quick break for lunch and we were talking and all admitted that none of us wanted the job as the guy who would be out line manager was there and he was a right knob. I can’t imagine what they thought of us all at the end of the day!