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 am so, so sorry for you. I did exactly the same some years ago and I was mortified - heartbroken. It all worked out well in the end though and I hope it does for you too.

[tissues]

OP, just wanted to offer commiserations and to say I've also been in this situation.

Public sector. Temped in a role for 13 months, invited to apply for the permanent role but was apprehensive when I learned someone on the interview panel was someone I'd never really clicked with, was known for being tricky and passive aggressive. However I felt the others on the panel would balance that person's behaviour out. Did some interview practise and felt all would be ok.

Night before the interview I got bitten by a mosquito on my eye and top lip resulting in my entire lefthand side of my face swelling to three times its normal size. Didn't slept a wink that night and was interviewed first thing doped up on antihistamines and pain killers - had told HR about this first thing that morning in the hope they'd left me postpone the interview. They didn't offer me that option.

Mind went blank for the test even though it was stuff I could do blindfolded and went into a blind panic. I was so anxious by the time it was the actual interview I felt like a deer caught in headlights. None of the questions they asked me had anything to do with the role or competency based.

Sure enough I scored the lowest even though candidate who was offered the role couldn't do the test either.

Colleague who I work with closely and who was also on the panel was the one to tell me hadn't been successful. We both cried. He offered to give me interview feedback but I choose to strike it from the record as I'd known from the outset I wouldn't be offered the role.

Tbh it was the best thing that could have happened. Once I got over the initial upset I wouldn't be working with the colleague I loved working with, I was fine. A much better and more interesting role, one that's a step up came up in a different department and I was offered that without an interview.

Am sure something wonderful will come out of all this and in 6 months time you'll be so thankful

Best of luck OP. Thanks @Minta85 I’ve just bought that book you recommended

I’m a big baffled as to why you have been asked to interview for a role you are already deemed competent at.Surely it was evident that nerves got the better of you?

The only thing that helps IMO is experience of interviews- I much prefer the technical question ones and hate the ones are like what are your weaknesses etc questions coz I know my job really well and when I relocated i got offered the job in all 4 of my interviews as in my line of dirk (property law) they often ask technical questions - but I got less nervous each time and experience is the only thing that really helps with the non technical questions and nerves!

Yes in public sector, if you don't score most points, then you don't get the job even if you are the best candidate by a mile. I know quite a few people doing excellent work in assignment posts who have been beaten to the permanent post in capability tests by higher scoring less able candidates, so not uncommon. And certainly not fair imo, although striving for complete fairness is the aim of the process.

The problem with capability tests is that if you don't prep in the right way, it is impossible to pass. So only those 'in the know' with internal knowledge of what is required or with the ability to pull the required bits together in another way succeed. Oh and the ability to remember your examples and reel them off in the interview to sufficient depth

But the major flaw of capability interviewing that candidates with little experience in a capability can make up a really good uncheckable example and, if they can present it well, can score really well. I 've been disadvantaged by this myself, losing out narrowly to a candidate who did just that and then couldn't do an important part of the job.

My company is now trying to move away from competency based interviews and is getting better results from those types.

Hang in there, it feels really painful but you will bounce back, so not to act hastily in order to keep all options open. When you receive your feedback, ask for your scores for each question then ask how each one could have been improved to score more highly- write it all down when they are speaking to use it for next time. Go back to your interview prep and rewrite your examples using the feedback and store for next time

For your next interview, prep your examples using the capability lists from your/their organisation. Take your example and rewrite it until it covers all the bits in the full description for that capability. Prep the capabilities you completed in the application form and a couple of others if you have time. Then repeat then out loud until you can remember it well. This should help with memory blocks, and you can list key point titles on index cards just in case.

Sorry, very long! Good luck for the next one, hopefully something even better will come along

The book “great answers to tough interview questions” contains everything you need to know. I buy it as a gift for any mate who gets made redundant.

I really hope this is one of those times where you look back on it as having all been for the best. Good luck.

Are you a member of a Union? If so get advice pronto as I really smell a rat here....

I think there's something funny about this. Managed out' sounds more likely to me.
This really doesn't add up.
Get some advice from Acas.

If interviews make you crumble you need to role play them til they bore you silly & it's an internal script you can recite at will. I was the same til i contracted. Now I've done so many I go into my spiel & I've only lost out on two jobs in 15years. Also IME interviewing for your own job is always an underhand way to get rid of you. The minute I was asked to (once) I just left & got a new contract as CBA with money-saving charade . Friend there later informed me they'd made it a 20hr a week role. (no good for me).

Dear OP it is quite astonishing and I agree with the poster who recommends ACAS because it seems very wrong after 10 years. They cannot, surely get rid of you like that? I should google the employment laws and ask CAB.

In the meantime, why not go into Companies House online and search your firm and the names of the managers and see what you come up with. It could be a bit of nepotism here and even if it is not that, they could well have someone in mind for your job - probably at less money - and that, surely, is a nono. You can search online. No one will know.

She hasn't been managed out. This is the way it works in the public sector (and in my case this is the way it has worked everywhere that I've worked).

You can disagree with the process but that doesn't mean the OP has been discriminated against. She knew what the process was and she accepts it, but she is understandably disappointed.

Well yes she has been managed out. Senior management chose to put this weird system in place as an absolute requirement for OP keep her job. Her direct manager knew all about it but chose not to brief/prepare her for the interview. Despite being good at her job, OP's management created a situation that caused her to lose it. That is the definition of 'managed out'.

Her direct manager knew all about it but chose not to brief/prepare her for the interview

I don't know for definite what it's like where the OP works, but anywhere I have worked, your manager isn't allowed to coach you for the interview, or proof read your application form etc. Because it's a conflict of interest.

Okay, so no one was 'allowed' to tell her: 'In order to keep your job, you'll have to pass this oral exam and the metrics are xyz and you'll need to know how to answer xyz.'

Again that's called being 'managed out'.

Boy there are a lot of apologists on this thread.

@llizzie

Companies House won't have anything because she works in the public sector.

She's not losing her job, she just goes back to her previous one, she's just not being promoted is all. ACAS aren't going to be remotely interested in 'I applied for an internal role, fluffed the interview, didn't get it and now have to stay in my original job'.
It's hardly a miscarriage of justice, it's just a shitty system.

And no, your manager is not allowed to coach you since they are going to be interviewing you. She will have had the criteria up front, that was what she did her prep on.

The OP hasn't been managed out, she still has her original role. As for the 'weird system' that's been put in place, it's the way staff are recruited access the public sector, not a done on the back a fag packet harebrained scheme. Suggesting unions or ACAS doesn't help the OP, there is nothing underhand going on. It's a perfectly normal recruitment process which is flawed, but is designed to ensure everyone gets an equal chance at interview, regardless of whether they are already in post or known to any of the panel. Personally I think it's flawed without additional assessments, but it it what many of us are stuck with.

I'm not an apologist for being managed out.

I'm pointing out that this is how the system works. In my case (as I don't live in England) this is how nearly all recruitment works because that's the law. Jobs have to be advertised, everyone has to be asked the same questions at interview etc. It's only really tiny firms that don't have to do this stuff.

Mostly all information about name, age and sex etc are removed, and only the answers to the questions are visible to the shortlisting panel, so even if you're temping in a job you only get an interview if you do a good application. Then at interview you are treated the same as everyone else, with the same opportunity to answer the same questions.

No, I get that. It's how the system works, it's entrenched, there are loads of justifications for it, it's incredibly difficult to change.

I'm not saying anyone had it in for OP.

And still, management created a situation which caused her to lose her job. That's called being managed out.

Just saying, 'Yabbut system' doesn't make that any less true.

Does employment law in England not cover recruitment? Can companies just do their recruitment any way they want? Could I just walk into a company with my CV and say, do you have any jobs that I could do, and they could say 'well, yes, actually, our ABC person has just resigned and your CV shows that you would fit right in'. ?

That's a genuine question, although when I read it back it sounds a bit sneery and disbelieving. It's not, I just don't understand how it works, because that's not how it works where I am.

Yes there is law recovering recruitment, yes this is a perfectly legal way of recruiting. As is someone offering you a job after looking at your CV.

Well, generally, yes, as long as there is no discrimination.

I am not trying to argue with you. I know I'm being pedantic. I am concerned that in the very title the OP is calling herself 'shit' and is clearly blaming herself. And her bloody manager is crying! When the fact is that the OP is not to blame for this.

What is considered illegal in recruitment?

Where I am you can't just approach an employer like that. Well, you can, but you'll be considered a time waster, your CV will go in the bin and you'll be told to look on their website for jobs being advertised.

I am not trying to argue with you. I know I'm being pedantic. I am concerned that in the very title the OP is calling herself 'shit' and is clearly blaming herself. And her bloody manager is crying! When the fact is that the OP is not to blame for this.

I know And although I'm defending the system, because it's the only one I've ever known, I also see that there are huge flaws in it. Some people are very very good at talking the talk whilst not being able to back it up in the actual job. Similarly, the workplace is awash with less confident people who are very good at their jobs but not good at selling themselves.

Off topic slightly, but Nhs definitely don’t have to stick to scores when appointing. I was interviewed for my job after secondment in the Nhs, scored highly (way above other applicants) and wasn’t given the job. It took them over a month to let me know as they tried to come up with a reason why not.