Job Hunt Gripe

[moon_custafer]

Job agency called to say I didn’t get the one I interviewed for on Friday, because “they got the impression you wouldn’t have been a good fit in the long term; the work wouldn’t have been creative enough to satisfy you.” Trying to figure out how to convey to future potential employers that I honestly am ok with repetitive work. Did wearing a knee-length skirt and flats make me seem too arty?

In related news, I apparently did well at the online aptitude tests on Sunday (they were pretty easy); we’ll see if anyone follows up.

The other place that’s contacted me had a “one-way video interview” which meant they gave me questions in text form and I had to record short videos of my answers. Asking to see the candidates’ faces so early in the process piqued my sense of— propriety? fair play? hard enough that I brushed my hair to reveal the buzzed side of my head. Not particularly daring these days, of course. For the rest, they got my usual short answers to questions like “why do you want to work here in particular?” in my usual deep-but-low-volume monotone.

Comments

[lilysea]

The other place that’s contacted me had a “one-way video interview” which meant they gave me questions in text form and I had to record short videos of my answers. Asking to see the candidates’ faces so early in the process piqued my sense of— propriety? fair play?

Yeah, I'd be really concerned that they are [consciously or unconsciously] discriminating against Black people; Latinix people; and also fat people; by doing this. :(

[moon_custafer]

Trying to figure out how to convey to future potential employers that I honestly am ok with repetitive work.

Thinking back on the interview, I may have pinpointed what I said wrong— I admitted that one of the frustrations of the last job was being asked, every year, to come up with a new, fresh style for the company catalogue, when after the first couple of years I knew that anything I showed them would be rejected as too different and ultimately they would want me to just do the same thing as the year before with a slightly different colour scheme. Evidently they heard this as “I’d rather be given creative work to do” rather than “I’d rather be given an accurately-described assignment.”

[troisoiseaux]

a “one-way video interview” which meant they gave me questions in text form and I had to record short videos of my answers

I once had not quite the same thing, but a video interview where there was an actual human asking me questions but who did not respond to or acknowledge my answers in any way other than to ask the next question. It was so weird. (On the bright side, the next job interview I had after that, I was so relieved to actually be able to have a conversation with the interviewer that I basically forgot to feel nervous?)

[sabotabby]

Damn, job interviews are terrifying enough without having to produce a video. I'm sorry.

[kore]

Another friend of mine had to do that "remote interview" bullshit for a teaching gig, and wow, they managed to make a Zoom interview even more terrible!