My First Real Interview

Yes, for a real job. Here I was right before the interview, nervous as hell, a thousand possible scenarios going through my mind -- visions of me triumphantly conquering with an ethereal glow on my face were juxtaposed with images of my body strewn on the ground -- yet the only thing that went through my mind after the interview was, "Huh."

They didn't grill me like I thought they would; there were no questions like, "Describe your biggest challenge to date", "Tell me about a time you showed leadership", "Why do you want to join us", or "How many fire hydrants are there in Manhattan!?" (No joke, I studied the subway map on my way there). The only questions they really asked were, "When are you graduating, what is your major, what do you do in your spare time?" which is all small talk. To be fair, the job I interviewed for is basically for an adminstrative assistant position, but even still, not asking me about any of my qualifications or anything on my resume -- I mean, why did you even bring it in with you in the first place?

I suppose you could say it's a good thing they didn't ask me hard questions that required on-the-spot thinking (EX: How many ping-pong balls can fit in a bathtub) but them not asking me any substantial questions makes me even more worried. Are they interested in me? What kind of critereon are they using to judge me? Why did I bust my ass to prepare for this interview?

I'll hear from them in a few days, so we'll see what happens. In the meantime, I should write a thank you letter to follow up. Hopefully I won't make any critical errors this time.

--Emoinacloset


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As a side note, today I went to two more recruiting sessions, one for JPMorgan Chase and another for Goldman Sachs. I also went to a Barclays Capital recruiting session a couple of days ago. I plan on pledging for Beta Alpha Psi -- an honor society/professional frat so no jungle juice and frat parties there -- and trying out for Fed Challenge this week (Federal Reserve policy-making simulation), for which I am working on a presentation.