It turns out that applying for a real job is a lot harder than just handing round your CV and having a 20 minute interview. The application process for the ONS required days just to fill in the initial application. They were assessing us on six competencies, which we had to prove we were capable of in 250 word paragraphs.
I’ve spent my time at University taking part in so much, and working really hard in order to build experience relevant for jobs like this one. However, none of that really matters if you can’t get it across on the page.
I met with my personal tutor who helped me come up with ideas for what examples to give in the application, and then I spent three days writing and re-writing various parts of the application.
However, that work paid off and I was lucky enough to get through to the interview stage. At first I was thrilled that I got the interview, but then the reality that I would actually have to go to an interview dawned and I came back down to earth. Earlier this week I went to the interview, and it was absolutely terrifying, and I will be kicking myself for the questions that I messed up on for weeks. A competency-based interview is not something I have ever experienced before; they don’t ask the general questions you might expect such as ‘what are your core values?’ and ‘what can you bring to the team?’, but rather focus on the same six competencies that they assessed in the initial application.
I wish I hadn’t told anyone that I was going to an interview, because of course when I got back everyone was asking me how it went and I really didn’t want to talk that much about it. How do you tell people that it just didn’t go that well?
The best thing to come of the whole process really is simply the experience. As much as I wish that someone would just come along and offer me a job without me having to put any effort into applying, that’s just not going to happen. Without going along to interviews I will never be able to improve how I respond to them. There were definitely some key lessons that I picked up just from this first one:
1. Prep like crazy. I fell down on one part of the interview because I just couldn’t remember the answer to a technical question; not because it was difficult, but because it was easy. It was a topic that I hadn’t covered since first year and I just assumed I would be able to answer their questions, resulting in me feeling pretty foolish when I couldn’t remember the answer.
2. Prep some more. Thinking up decent answers on the fly to questions you could have prepared answers for is just silly and for sure highlighted my naivety in the interview.
3. Know the company you are applying for, and think about what kind of person they want to hire. That way you can tailor your answers to make sure you are including the really key things that they are looking for in an employee, and showing knowledge about what they do will get the point across that you really are interested in working for them, and not just applying for the sake of it.
Remember that if you are struggling with your application, the University offers a career drop-in service where they can help you with the application process and give advice for how to proceed.
If anyone else has any key tips or pieces of advice that they have learned from interviews please do share in the comments, because I’m still figuring out the best way to go about it and other people’s experience and insight would be very helpful!
Emma
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