Mat leave and upcoming job interview HELP

[Liljay]

Hi!

I'm currently on maternity leave with my 4 month old and I have a job interview which I really want at a workplace I trained at a few years ago, so I do know the interview panel members - not sure if this makes it worse though! In truth, if this job wasn't my ideal job at a former workplace I wouldn't have been applying for jobs this early on in my mat leave as my brain just doesn't feel ready but due to me not having a job to go back to I would have been job hunting from May time regardless. With standard notice periods if I were to be successful this new job wouldn't commence until Spring time so I would have some more time with my baby.

Anyway, I've managed to do some prep over the last couple of days using ChatGPT to formulate questions from the job spec but I'm finding it so hard to get my answers/experiences to sink into my brain!! This is coupled with limited time due to a very grizzly baby who doesn't want to be out down at the moment due to teething/sleep regression/milestones, I am just feeling rubbish about the whole situation and pressured.

Any tips or positive stories appreciated 🙏

Oh bless you! It’s so tough at that stage.

One thing I found useful when returning to a work with a non sleeper is to make sure I write down any actions immediately at the end of a meeting and verbally sum up. I did it because I was so afraid of forgetting things as my mind was all over the place but it actually made me look more proactive and confident. I would advise to own it during your interview. If you need to check anything or get them to clarify, proactively own it and say that you want to ensure you don’t miss anything as you are quite sleep deprived.