Friday, October 5, 2007

Interview freak me out

So after my interview yesterday, Jamie told me that they were having their favorites take a skills test and do a "natural talents and abilities" interview. "Natural talents and abilities interview" roughly translates to "personality test". So yesterday afternoon I got a call. I had to do a skill test and they set up an phone interview for the personality test. This really nice lady named Arbra is doing the interview, she's scheduled everything for me so far. So, hopefully she'll be nice during this interview as well.

I took the skills test last night. I've taken tests like this before, but oh my gosh, this one was BAD!!! I knew I'd be tested on PowerPoint and that is my weakness as far as the Microsoft Office Suite, I just haven't done much with it and am a little uncomfortable with the program. So, I played around in it a little just to brush up on some skills. Then I logged in to take the test.

Sometimes I hate computers. I've been using these programs for eternity and I really feel like I know how to use them. It has a little simulator and you have to do certain functions in each program. Like the question will say "adjust the margins for this document to be 1" on top and bottom" and I go to their little controlled Word environment and adjust the margins. Only problem is that when I hit 'tab' to go from one box to the next, it tells me I got the question wrong! Rude! So, then I use the mouse and click in the box, only I miss the dialog box and it boots me out of the question. I used up both of my chances so now the test thinks I don't know how to adjust the margins! That's ridiculous! I missed 3 other stupid questions like that, all of which I am perfectly capable of doing on a regular basis, but according to the test I'm stupid. Ew. I'm bugged by that.

Then I started the Excel test and it asks me all of these questions about "lists" which is irritating because I've never even heard of a list in Excel. So I played around with their version and found some of the answers, but missed some first. And they asked like 6 questions about lists! Bad news for me. I missed 3 of the Excel questions.

By this time I'm really nervous about Power Point, so I start into the test and it's multiple question and you are allowed to use any program and any help feature that you need. EASY!!! I rocked that one. Wow.

Spelling was next, and it turns out that I'm not so great at spelling, that's because I use spell check and look up words that I don't know.

Overall I guess I did OK. I was in the 95th percentile on all of them, except Power Point which didn't give percentiles but told me I was "advanced" which is funny because I'm not. So, according to this test, my strengths are in Power Point and NOT Excel which is all wrong. But whatever does it for them.

This afternoon I took the dreaded personality test. Ew. I hate those things. The person giving it records the test, and cannot give any clarification on any questions, but can repeat the question. Before we started she needed to get some background information from me:
"What is the name you like to be called?"
Gertrude. That would be funny if I said Gertrude. "Amy."
"State your name, and spell it for the record."
"Amy Egbert. A-M-Y E-G-B-E-R-T" I feel like I'm on trial, anybody have a bible?
Then the real questions begin:
Are you an introvert or an extrovert? Why?
Are you dependable?
Rate your dependability on a scale of 1-10.
Responsible?
How many days of work did you miss last year?
How do you feel about cleaning up after a party?
If a friend had something you needed, would you ask for it?
Do you like to be supervised?
What do you like about your job?
Tell me about your work history?
Are you assertive?
The list continued, then she asked me something REALLY strange. "Have you ever experienced flow in and event or situation?"
Me: "Flow?"
Her: "flow. f-l-o-w"
Me: "I know you can't clarify so I'm just trying to decide how to answer that question."
Her: "it's your interpretation."
Me: "Sure, I guess so." What the crap is flow? Isn't that an acronym for something? Why can't I remember my business classes? KISS is Keep It Simple Stupid. What's FLOW? What does that mean? Help!!!
Her: "Please explain what you interpret that question to be."
Me: "uhhh....." long pause "I guess I just think of something going smoothly, as planned, without anything abnormal or bumpy happening." Bumpy? did I just say bumpy? Who says bumpy? That was stupid. I hope she doesn't write that down. Who am I kidding of course she'll write it down. She's recording this whole thing. Bumpy. Wow.
Her: "OK."
The questions continued:
Do you feel good about yourself?
How do you handle your personal finances?
Do you pay your bills late?
Would you see yourself working as a senior secretary for CES Physical Facilities long term?
Etc etc etc.
Wow. What a personal interview!

A few things I noticed about myself, I say the word "so" at the end of sentences, that's a bad habit and I need to not do it. I think it's an attempt to not sound dumb saying "so...yeah." but it's just as dumb to say "so....." I'll work on it.

Then came the sales portion. "If someone didn't' buy something they needed, how would you react?" "I'd trust that they know what they need better than I do. It's not up to me what they use in their lives....so...."
Her: "Do you consider yourself a salesperson?"
Me: "No."
Her: "Why or why not?"
Me: "Because I don't think it's my right to tell people what to do. We each have our agency and while I am perfectly happy to make suggestions, point out differences, and recommend something, I don't think it's my job to make sure the world agrees with me."
Her: "k."
I got a lot of "K"s in this interview. A few "good"s but a LOT of "k"s I hope that's not a bad thing. I know they're looking for a certain type of person, and I hope I'm it, but worried that they won't see that I'm it.

Yesterday I felt really good about everything, that it will all be OK, and now I'm just plain nervous. I know they are doing more of these phone personality interviews on Monday, and I'm sure a lot of people haven't even taken the test....so I really don't expect to hear back from them before Wednesday, I guess we'll see. Hopefully they love me and change my life forever. But you never can tell. Here I am having faith.

1 comment:

  1. I feel your pain. They asked me the same deep confusing questions. But it sounds like you answered them better than I did and I got the job..soo...(I do the "so" thing at the end of everything too!) I'm pushing for you :)

    ReplyDelete

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