Should I attend an interview if an internal candidate is also being interviewed?

[jclm]

I have my 12th job interview in nearly 3 years next week. Many of these jobs have gone to internal candidates. For me, this is a huge waste of time and money for childcare (childcare is £80 per day and I'll need 2 days to prepare for a demanding interview and 1 day to attend the interview).

Anyway, I rang up HR at this organisation and asked if there were any internal candidates being interviewed. The man I spoke to said 'no internal candidates, but there is a person on a secondment with us, who is being interviewed'.

I do not understand the distinction between an internal candidate and someone on a secondment. What can he mean? Would it be a student who is on work experience, for instance? Should I go to the interview or not bother?

Definitely should go, my OH found out they had an internal candidate and another with had loads of experience thought he had no chance and got it! Also if you do well but not well enough they may remember you for future work. 2 days prep sounds extremely excessive would a few evenings not do?! Or see if a friend can have DC for a while

Thanks leopard.

The problem is the interview is quite challenging - there is a 45 minute written test, 45 minutes of questions, and 15 minute presentation. (This is a job paying £23,000 pro rata...)

The reason I say I need 2 days to prepare is because I've been to other job interviews where I have not been as prepared, and I felt stupid on the day. If I'm doing this for networking reasons, I don't want to muck up the questions. I'm someone who is not a natural people person and i cant ad lib so I need to be very prepared for each question.

Why not? An internal applicant applied for same job as me and I got it.

Definitely go. I've interviewed internal candidates who were on temporary contracts or more junior grades, and whilst some got the jobs others didn't (in some cases we were very glad of an excuse to get rid of them). The interview questions should be structured in such a way as not to disadvantage you in any way, so try and think of it as a completely level playing field.