2nd interview...with HR woman I have peed off in the past

[PippiL]

I am starting my 1st "proper" office job in 5 years tomorrow. Editorial Assistant at large publishing company. Step down from last publishing job but a way to get back into things. Salary ok - only just covers childcare but the point is to do something for myself.

All hunkey dorey til I got an interview at more prestigious publishing co. Same role as before having kids. Pays £6000 more :-o

Had that last week. Told them the situ with starting work tomorrow etc.

Have got 2nd interview for Tuesday afternoon. 3.30pm on my 2nd day at work!!!

ALSO - one of the interviewers will be a woman I severely cheesed off a couple of years ago. She was a recruitment consultant at an agency. And when I was going through bad patch with husband I applied for and got offered a job through the agency. I ended up not only rejecting it once, but getting them to reconsider me and rejecting in again :-o

Yes yes yes I know that is shocking and i was mightily embarrassed about it. But in the end it came down to childcare arrangements letting me down and I had no nursery for my son.

So really I have two questions.

1st - what do I say to new work so I can get to interview? Bearing in mind I might not be able to contact during the day and ask for a different interview time.

2nd - how do I deal with HR woman who may well remember me and have an interest in making it difficult for me during the interview?

Any advice gratefully received

If this was a couple of years ago and she was a recruitment consultant doing nothing but seeing candidates, she will have had lots of people letting her down at various times and irritating her, including since then. She may not even remember you and is unlikely to be holding a major grudge this far down the line.

Even if she is, the best and only thing you can do is be great in the interview and demonstrate that you are the best person for the job. The meeting is about this job, they obviously are very interested in you and think you might be good, and the interview on Tuesday is about you having the opportunity to demonstrate that. The HR woman may or may not remember you, who knows, and if she does, she may or may not choose to tell the other interviewer. If she was going to tell she probably would have done already and you still have an interview. You just need to go and wow them basically, just as you would want to anyway.

In terms of how you get time off from your new job on day two, there's no good answer to that really - time off on day 2 of any job is really not great. I would make your absolute first priority trying to reorganise it if at all possible, because if you don't get the new job you still need this one.

If you can't reorganise it for after work, you may have to invent some kind of emergency doctors appointment or something.

Re woman, no idea. Re time-off - dentist. And you'd completely forgotten about it, but one of your wisdom teeth is trying to come through again so you'd better see to it now?