Of Interview wheel

Alright folks,

i'm still writing this while things are still fresh in my mind and i'm quite fiesty about all this as well..

first things first, i attended the interview for Marcom Executive at Company V this evening. What i did not expect was for my interview to involve 2 rounds, 1st with the Company V management and 2nd round with a HR representative(i was later told she's an executive) from Company V's parent company, which does Company V's HR..

Round 1 - Ding ding

While, round 1 went quite well, standard questions about what i did, why i left and when they did ask if i applied for other positions, i was honest in revealing that i did, though they were not necessarily marcom related.. my greatest concern, however, was whether i was really ready to be working OT almost everyday and working on weekends on a regular basis.. i like the way how the General Manager ended by reminding me how i was never obliged to take on the job despite working with them on one of their projects under my current company (ie. i serve Company V for this project in which i'm the coordinator from my office)

Round 2 - BRING IT ON

Okie, this is the first time that i attended an interview that had no HR sitting in and on top of that, HR interview you separately after the management is done.. but having gone through the interview, perhaps the management wanted to spare themselves the agony of listening to a HR personnel TRYING to ask smart questions or trying their best to make recruitment look reasonable.. while, common sense can be quite uncommon after all..

so back to this scenario.. what went wrong?

perhaps she (yep, just one person from HR interviewed me, an executive i later heard) was trying to use negative questions to test my reactions, perhaps she wasn't sure how she should have approached with her questions, perhaps she is new and it was late into the late late afternoon that she was thinking about dinner more than my job, perhaps she's just darn crappy

i'll not list everything down because i'm lazy

but look here, we spoke about handling some aspects of customer service under the Marcom executive job scope and i was fine with that, but when she spoke about managing customer service officers on a daily basis, it just seem to have gone off-course.. the next best thing after i clarify and got affirmation that i was applying for marcom exec? she commented:

"i'm concerned about your lack of leadership experience, you might have problems implementing things and managing the customer service officers on a day-to-day basis.."

LACK
OF
LEADERSHIP
EXPERIENCE

ok lah, i have never managed customer service officers before and it was never my intention to manage them in the first place, but lack of leadership? let me see..

i guess being Head of Training, Sec 3 Squad Commander and Overall-in-charge of your secondary school NPCC unit and earning the Best Unit Cadet and Outstanding CCA Award in Sec 4 wasn't much of a deal, being Station Inspector doesn't really matter either right..

i'm sure whatever i did when i was in the Singapore Police Force for my NS as an inspector has little or no contribution towards leadership experience, well.. maybe not when all i had to do was to do almost everything regarding recruitment eh?

let me see, i'm sure having 5 NSF under me when i was working in the SPF as a Management Support Officer, managing their daily workload, doing their training needs analysis, performance appraisial etc doesn't count towards leadership qualities.. 

and what else do i not have? hmm, i guess being the Officer Commanding(OC) of a team of NSmen at reservist doesn't add anything to my leadership experience either

ohh.. she had this to add after i tried explaining how my experience in NPCC and the Police(as MSO) could help me should i be called upon a supervisory position:

"you also lack supervisory experience in your last 2 jobs"

oh yeah, i'm sure all employers out there are ready to develop their diploma holders and give them assistants or staff to supervise while in their jobs.

FAIL

okie, this post is getting long, so just one more example where she asked if i applied for other jobs

i honestly replied that i'm also looking at some Account Executive positions and i was also interview for a Operations related position.. and guess what?

She "why you want to do accounts exec"?
Me: "well, the AE job is somewhat like my current job where i service the client"
She looks super confused
I got it
Me: "accounts exec as in AE in marketing agencies"
She continues to look super confused, in fact most so.. and on reflection, i swear she was flipping my certificates to find something that reads Accounting & Finance of ACCA
Me: "accounts executive as in client-servicing in marketing agencies?"
She "oh.. OH.."

I'm still not sure if she got it

EPIC FAIL

So if you are one of those who are wondering if i had a good interview or not..

my answer is.. good and very bad..

go figure