Is this UR to be upset about?

[siestakey]

I had a job interview yesterday at a well known travel agents. Made it through initial application then phone interview and yesterday was the face to face including presentation about myself.

I am 20 years old and studied travel and tourism at college aged 16-18 and achieved distinctions all the way through, since leaving college I have also gained a higher education diploma at a higher distinction.

My goal has been to work at this particular travel agents, it's my dream job. There have only been 6 jobs advertised near me since I finished college 2 years ago and this is the first time I've made it through the phone stage.

I spent 2hrs on Sunday preparing my presentation, I dressed smartly, knee length nice dress, black tights, small black smart heels from Clarke's, black blazer and minimal makeup, professional hair. (I always make lots of effort when it comes to professional interviews!)

I arrived at the interview yesterday evening with my presentation on a memory stick and there was another girl there too (group interview), other 3 didn't turn up.

2 positions available and I could start immediately with no other commitments.

I failed the maths test. 10 questions, I got 4 right and you needed 8. They were simple ones too that I got wrong (working out percentages) and I told the lady it's just because I haven't done maths for 2 years and I can easily relearn percentages in 1hour!

Apparently it's policy that you have to get 8 right. They even said before the interview they don't use maths on a day to day basis and if they do it's with a calculator.

I wasn't allowed to show my presentation and asked to leave as I couldn't progress anymore.

I got so upset once outside the shop and really felt let down by the company tbh, I mean, I have great relevant qualifications with the highest grades you can get, relevant customer service experience and I dress nicely, extremely polite, hardworking etc. 4 bloody maths questions ruined it.

AIBU? God I'm so upset and mad at myself. If I'd had known there would be maths (no mention of it beforehand!) I would have gone over basic stuff again. Can't reapply for another 6 months.

I have emailed to say thank you for the opportunity and lovely to meet them (the managers) and that I was thankful for the opportunity, really keen for the job and disappointed that despite having the relevant qualifications I couldn't continue due to 4 wrong maths answers.

@Atalune the position won't be there then I doubt, I've only seen 6 near me in 2 years, but thank you!

Yeah I need my maths GCSE really, but I don't need it to get into uni which is really strange!

They wouldn't test on percentages if it wasn't needed. They probably offer percentage discounts in given circumstances so it would be a requirement to be able to calculate them.

I don't think many modern companies these days would expect or want their employees to work out percentage discounts in their head without checking it using a calculator.

YANBU OP, I'd be really disappointed and if I'm honest it would put me off the company. I've gone for plenty of interviews in the past where maths/English test are required but the maths tests in particular are completely irrelevant to the job. I find it to be a waste of time and it often skims out good candidates. Their loss!!

Just because there was only two who turned up doesn’t entitle you to have the job. If it is high profile as you are making out then they will extend the interviews.
Also, saying you could brush up in an hour comes across as arrogant. If it was that easy, you would know it.
Two hours prep for a job isn’t actually a long time and yes you should always present yourself well for ANY job.
I’m sorry you are upset but you didn’t meet the mark and personally, you following up with an email saying “4 wrong answers” isn’t the way either and doesn’t make you look any better, you actually got 60% incorrect (see what I did there) the email shows that you cannot listen and take no for an answer. The rest of the email was fine, but it comes across like you had to have the last word. Management don’t want a know it all and a pain in the arse to deal with

Yanbu to be disappointed.
Yabu about the expectations of the interview process. There would be no point on hearing your presentation when they knew you were not going to get the job. That would be a waste of time on both sides and actually a bit humiliating if they’d said no.
Learn from this. Be pleased you progressed to an interview this time which is better than previously. Next time if you improve your maths, you may just get the job!
I’m in retail and am always surprised when people can’t do a simple discount without a till or calculator.
Is there perhaps an independent travel agent who aren’t going to recruit in such a rigid format?

well you just need to be a bit pushy sometimes and so there might not be a job in 6m but they will remember you as the one who really really wanted the job. You’ll be memorable.

You can do a maths GCSE at any adult learning centre.

@Atalune Good point! I'll look into the GCSE, thank you :)

@MaMaMaMySharona (brilliant name!)

Thank you! I agree, it definitely wasn't needed for the job as they said so themselves! It's just the companies criteria unfortunately.

@Fuzzyheadache Sorry I didn't explain well enough, they'd interviewed others during the day, we weren't the only two (just 3 from out interview group didn't turn up!).
I never felt entitled to the job as that's crazy but I did feel confident with my qualifications.

Yes I understood the 60% comment. I'm not completely stupid. They were confusing percentages (but I can imagine a lot of people would find them quite simple- like I said, I'm not great at maths).

Ok so you got a knock back, that sucks.

But, you know you want to work with this company again, so now you know that nailing the mathematics is what they want so spend your time and money on maths grinds for that instead of your hair in advance of the next interview.

I'm shit at maths. Especially if I don't use it daily. So when I applied for something that I knew would have a numerical portion to the test I practised and practised and managed to scrape through.

You see all those people on the likes of Xfactor and the Voice who return after failing to get through the year before? See the respect they get for plugging away despite the knock-backs? Emulate that.

Don’t worry OP, I didn’t get my dream job that I’d spent 6 months(!) preparing for (also didn’t come up very often) because of a silly throw away comment made at my second interview.

I was completely gutted and wallowed for a couple of days, before dusting myself off and learning what I could from the experience (mostly to never switch “off” even during the small talk in an interview).

I kept preparing in case the opportunity came up again and low and behold it did, 6 months later. I was ready for it that time, didn’t make any more silly slip ups and got the job!

Go do something fun for now (working abroad?), practice percentages and then come back and nail it next time!

I don't think many modern companies these days would expect or want their employees to work out percentage discounts in their head without checking it using a calculator.

But even then, I would expect (or maybe hope ) that someone can sanity check the results - calculator or not. Otherwise any mistake in using the calculator goes unnoticed.

I wouldn't expect anyone to be able to tell me 15% of £2,154.22 at the drop of a had. But I would hope they'd immediately spot that £512.45 isn't .....

OP if they are asking you about exchange rates, GBP converted into EUR etc, they are not asking you to do percentages. That's an exchange rate, so simple multiplication or division. GBP 100 into EUR at an exchange rate of say 1.16 = EUR 116.

@edwinbear it was percentages it had a percentage sign? I'm not sure 😂

On the one hand it’s bizarre that you can’t work out percentages bit on the other you’ve probably saved yourself a lot of heartache later on. I doubt that your run of the mill high street travel agents will exist in ten years time. I would learn from the experience. Recruitment processes can be quite arbitrary and you should prepare yourself to be able to do all the usual adult stuff just in case even if it doesn’t seem relevant to the job. You may want to consider looking for a job in a more secure travel related company, travel tech in particular comes to mind as its growing and the skills you gain there will be more transferable. Also think about improving your skill set so that you have more options in terms of what you can apply to.

@GregoryPeckingDuck That's a good point to be fair! They do seem to be going out of business now everything is online. If I get my tourism degree I'll probably go for something in the airport maybe? Customer service?

I'm surprised people are surprised she can't do percentages in her head. I can never remember how to do them off the top of my head, always have to fiddle around with a calculator for a bit. I got a B in maths GCSE.

I'm surprised people are surprised she can't do percentages in her head.

I have an engineering degree and can only do simple ones in my head. And I'd use a calculator for exchange rates too.

I'd also expect any sort of test as part of the interview process to be clearly stated in advance.

Could you ask them for a copy of the test so you can figure out what they are likely to question you on next time? Or if they have some sample papers you can use as revision?

Quite reasonable to be disappointed by failing to get your dream job.

Not so reasonable to disagree with their selection process, which may well have been honed over years. Maybe they didn't want to know if you can do percentages, maybe they wanted to find out how you coped with a fairly simple (in your words) task, that you may not have done recently, under stress. This time the stress was an interview, but for a travel agent I would imagine that a lot of stressful situations arise, with cancellations, mistakes, natural disasters, airlines going bust, etc, etc all compromising customers' dream trips or leaving them stranded away from home.

There are all sorts of travel-related jobs that you could look into so I would think you have a fair bit of scope. Although if, as you say, "I wouldn't want to work overseas/leave my family", are you sure that travel is the ideal field for you?

@amicissimma I have no issues travelling abroad (for holidays etc) but I wouldn't want to work or live outside of the U.K. tbh. Plenty of tourism jobs at airports etc.

Do you know, this thread reminded me of a job interview I had. I didn't interview well and didn't brush up beforehand on the job specification. It seemed like the perfect place to work, perfect location, it even had an onsite nursery for staff and I was planning to TTC within a couple of years. Anyway, I didn't get the job and I was gutted.

I plugged on and landed a temp role in the company I'm in now. Got made permanent six months later and during the recession when we lost half of the staff, I got retained, much to my surprise. I'm still here and got a significant pay rise before Christmas.

A couple of years ago my brother got a job in the original place I had dreamed about albeit in a different department and discipline. On paper it seemed like a dream job - combining his considerable professional skills with a hobby area he's been lifelong passionate about. And it was so different from what he had envisaged. It was an oppressive office culture, and office politicking out the wazoo. The work ethic from his colleagues bordered on apathy and blaming others for mistakes and no real change or innovation which was sorely needed was encouraged at all. He hated working there so much. He's since left to start up his own company and far happier. And from his tales, I'm so glad I didn't get the job there when I interviewed.

Sometimes the idea of something we have in our heads just doesn't match up with the reality of it. It may be the case with this company and you.