Have you ever had a really bad interview?

[LaserShark]

Did it knock your confidence? I’ve been teaching for over ten years and for the past couple have been consistently rated as outstanding in all my observations in two different schools by different observers and I’ve had outstanding exam results. I still feel that sense of imposter syndrome all the time and frequently wonder if I’m good enough.

A few days ago I had an interview and got sent home after I taught the lesson. As the lesson was first on the itinerary, that meant I was walking back down the school drive less than two hours after I’d arrived, feeling completely humiliated.

I am not devastated about not getting the job. If I’d done the whole day and lost out to another candidate I’d be better able to shrug it off. I liked the school but wasn’t desperate for the job.

However, I didn’t get a chance to say anything, to talk to anyone - literally taught the lesson, got told I pitched it wrongly (too high for the ability of the students) and that they wouldn’t be proceeding with the interview. One other candidate got sent home as well, leaving just one there.

I’m mortified because I didn’t realise the lesson was so bad. I knew it was pitched too high once I was in there and did my best to adapt, but the kids produced some ok work and answered my questions and I felt like it was ok - not my best, but I didn’t at any point think it was so awful they wouldn’t even bother to interview me afterwards.

So, now I keep thinking maybe my lessons really are crap and I’m not seeing it. When I’m in front of a class now, I keep faltering, my stomach curling in on itself with humiliation.

I can see why it makes sense if they know they aren’t going to hire someone not to waste the time carrying on, but I feel like it happened so quickly that it blindsided me. I only briefly met the Head and HoD, my lesson was observed by the class teacher and then I was gone.

I would really like to be able to push it out of my head, but it’s really got to me. Has anyone else experienced this?

This happened to me once and I just sat in my car outside crying after.
At every interview I've ever had some candidates have been sent home after the lesson. So brutal!
Any bad observation is awful but you have to remember that 1 lesson is not necessarily representative of a teacher's skills. Particularly when you have never met the kids before and you can never trust the data the school give you for your interview class anyway imo so pitching it is sheer guesswork.
You are right they should have told you their plan but it's such common practice now they probably assumed you'd know.

It is a very bad way of conducting an interview. I agree with a pp who said that if they are going to treat potential employees on this way, can you imagine what they are like to work for?

It does make me despair that school management like this are supposedly responsible for instilling values such as respect and empathy towards others in students but don't practise those values themselves.

Many moons ago, when I was doing my PGCE, something similar happened to me and the school told me I needed too much training. I had been told by everyone that I was great so to suddenly be told I wasn't, was a shock to the system. Anyway, I then got my own back in someway because I landed a job in a competing school and year upon year my results are far, far better than theirs. And also, don't beat yourself up about reading the data. Schools have different expectations. I remember when a colleague of mine left and she said in her school, those that were apparently grade 6s in her new classes, would have been a 3, maybe a 4, in our school. It's so different and it sounds like you had a lucky escape

If it’s common practice to do this now, I never want to go to an interview again! I interviewed for my current job last March and it was a really good experience so I had gone to this interview thinking of all the positives I would get from having another interview in terms of what I’d learn even if I wasn’t offered the job (which I was 50-50 about anyway). But I got nothing from the experience and in fact found it damaging. I had always had a ‘nothing to lose’ attitude before but I had expected to be treated fairly - now I can see their decision was made before the day started and as soon as they saw the RQT was decent, I was superfluous to requirements.

I had asked if it could be a part time position as I work 0.8 before I applied and they said they would ‘strongly encourage’ to to apply and that part time wasn’t an issue. One of the first things they said when we arrived was ‘this is a full time position’ so I knew from the get go I had wasted my time and should have withdrawn at that point. They also said it was a maternity cover that they would make permanent and I couldn’t help but wonder if they really would, or if it was fixed-term and they’d get rid at the end of the Mat leave anyway. I’d say they have some pretty dodgy practice in terms of recruitment.

Your recent post about asking for part-time reminds me of a very similar experience.

I applied for a job requesting part-time because they said they welcomed part-time applicants. Went to the interview, taught the lesson, and for the first time ever in my career, they sent me home straight after the lesson!

I was taken into room for 'feedback', and the deputy said it was due to my lesson. So I asked what it was specifically about my lesson that was so bad, because I'm an experienced teacher and want to make sure I'm not making the same mistakes in my day-to-day lessons (I thought my lesson had been good). She waffled and basically didn't answer the question, so I cut in and pushed her further - I genuinely wanted to know what I was doing wrong in a lesson that I though was good!

She still didn't give me a straight answer, then in the end, she said "well, you did ask for part-time and we've decided we don't want a part-timer"!!

All the other candidates were PGCE students wanting a full-time position, where I was on UPS2 at the time and wanting part-time - I never stood a chance did I? What a waste of my time, and the disruption to my normal classes!

astuz we had the same experience!

I was told many years ago an interview is a two way process. I have had some comedy moments during interviews. It is short sighted to treat candidates like rubbish. That school and/or leadership team have made a terrible impression. I assumed they expect never to see you again or for you to disco your experience..... fools. You dodged a bullet.

LaserShark I'd earlier had a chat with the HoF and reading between the lines, I think the HoF was really hoping to get someone like me in (an experienced part-timer), as well as a new full-timer, because the A-level classes were huge, and it would have given her some leeway to split the A-level classes.

However, I think the HoF and the Head hadn't really talked properly together about it, until the morning of my interview, and the Head shut the whole idea down straight away due to lack of money. They could have talked about it BEFORE they brought me to interview though!

The deputy head who gave me the "feedback" after my lesson was a bitch anyway - we'd have been at loggerheads within the first week. The department was a mess as well - books and equipment piled all over the place, everywhere was filthy. I can't abide working in untidy departments.

It's shocking though that if I'd been a less confident person, I would have just accepted that my lesson was crap, when in actual fact there was nothing wrong with it!

I was also asked to leave after the lesson in an interview, for a job I had been doing for just under 2 years (long term supply). HT happily announced it in front of all the candidates. Mortifying. Stayed until the kids GCSEs then left. Im looking for jobs outside teaching now. I have everything to that school, and I won't be treated like that again. Have done a bit of supply since, but can't face going into a classroom again.

I wouldn't have minded If there was a better candidate, but there are ways and means to approach it. That was neither.

You have my sympathies , it's grim, but, nothing personal. I couldn't separate out the personal, but it was closer for me.

It's not personal, it's money, and no reflection on you. If ever the profession needed decent, experienced teachers who are skilled and knowledgeable it's now. Good luck.