6 Interviews and 6 No's

[Ohwhatacockup]

Title says it all really. I have had 6 interviews and 6 no's in 3 months! Only for administrative/secretarial posts. Interview yesterday I felt went really well and just had a call saying that I didn't answer some questions in depth enough. I am so disheartened. Its so difficult to take time off my present job to go to interviews. I do as much research as I can into the area I am being interviewed in. I am an older lady with so much experience and skills to give but getting nowhere. Maybe that's the job market out there but I am beginning to think its me!
Has anyone else been in this situation or maybe I am being naive as to how the job market is out there.

Are you following the STAR method? Businesses seem to lap that up.

@morbidd Never heard of it but I will have a look! Thank you. Some of the questions I have been asked seem so out of context to me!

Have you been in the same job for a while? Interview skills can get rusty - think of this 6 as good practice.
Do a bit of research about how recruiters are working now and the type of questions you're likely to be asked.
Websites like LinkedIn might be helpful.

Yeah it’s all about a situation you encountered, what you needed to do to sort it, what you did to sort it and then the result. It will help answer questions it more detail.

@morbidd I think its probably because I can't think of any situations and panic!

@Beamur You are correct! I was in my previous job for 16 years. I left because of a terrible management team and went to my present job but it hasn't been busy enough for me.

@Ohwhatacockup STAR
situation - what was the situation you were in
task - what was your task, what were you asked to do
action - what action did you take, how did you carry out your task ( things like researched a problem, consulted stakeholders, created a plan and implemented the plan
result - what was the result , what happened was a problem solved, were improvements made, what feedback did you get
hope that helps 🙂

@Mossey55 Thank you for taking the time to help. My problem is because I had the same job for 16 years I can't think of answers! For example, I was asked at last job what my management skills were like? I have never managed staff so I got a bit stuck. Should I have used STAR and if so how?

Your management skills don't just relate to managing people. You manage time, situations and work load. It's about being creative with your answers to be honest but they will definitely be wanting to hear about your experiences in your former role. Most questions will need a real life example in your answer. Do some on line research and prepare as much as you can before your next interview.
Best of luck OP!

Sunshine is my favourite has given good advice about management skills.
you could use an example of time management , maybe situation being other colleagues were absent so time was an issue , you had a task whatever that was, describe the task, actions could be you looked at your workload and reprised your workload (you would need to describe how you prioritise, probably by looking at urgent tasks, things that could wait, impact of letting things wait) then yo created an action plan based on your new properties, result could be work got done done, stress reduced for everyone, customer service was maintained. You could also include any feedback eg thank you from managers for keeping things going, Thankyou from colleagues and or absent colleague for covering fir her .
by using the STAR model it helps you to give a clear answer and helps the interviewer to understand and visualise what you did
just a few suggestions - hope it helps

The most useful thing for me is to look at the job spec and person spec then think of one example that covers 2/3 of them. So for example if the job/person spec talks about time management, problem solving and multi-tasking I’ll think ahead of time about a situation than involves all three. Then if they ask about any of those, I already have an example in mind rather than feeling out on the spot, if that makes sense.