Job Interviews: The New First Date

Today, focus is not in my vocabulary. I am trying to get my act together, but this one woman show is in intermission. Yesterday was productive and I’m sure tomorrow will be productive, too. Just not today. So I thought I’d type up a little blog about my experience with job interviewing, from my recent perspective as an interviewee.

Interviewing feels an awful lot like dating, with LinkedIn being the professional equivalent of eHarmony. You make a date with a prospective employer, do a bit of googling, ransack your closet for the right outfit that communicates the appropriate physical message, draft a list of conversation topics, and show up still not knowing if you have prepared enough, revealed too much or too little, appeared overly eager, or will be invited back for a second date or to meet the family.

And, ever so gingerly, you have to address why things haven’t worked out in previous relationships without implying that any of it was ever your fault. “I’m looking for more work/life balance,” might gloss over the fact that your current director is a compensatory narcissist with Attention Deficit Disorder. “I’m looking to take on more professional responsibility” could either indicate that you’re sick of being a professional meeting scheduler, ego stroker, and ass coverer in your current role or it might mean that you are a power-hungry megalomaniac. On the one hand, you do want to move up in this world. On the other hand, the person interviewing you probably doesn’t want your next move to be his/her position in the company. At least not until s/he has figured out how to take over their supervisor’s position.

Then you leave the interview and you wait by the phone and check your email ten times each hour to see if the department’s executive assistant is trying to contact you for another date with the director or the team, or perhaps to take a psychometric assessment in Human Resources. Your confidence bangs and crashes around as your heart rate and blood pressure rise and self-esteem plummets with each passing hour. How could they not want me? Of course they want me! Why haven’t they called yet? Screw them - I’m too good for them anyway! Omigod, I will be stuck in this dead-end job for the rest of my life ‘cuz lord knows Social Security and my 401(k) will probably shrivel up when I retire. Maybe it’s time to explore a life of travel writing, yoga instruction, and poverty. Damn it! I missed their call because I left my cell phone on Silent.”

Actually, I think my job search & interview experience is far less dramatic for me than it is for a lot of talented people out there because I have been fortunate enough to search for other positions while being employed. I am lucky to have a safety net called a steady paycheck, even though those paychecks have needed approvals from a compensatory narcissist or department director bolting around with undiagnosed ADD.

Interviewing is tough. Finding the right career fit is even tougher. But I’m going to keep putting myself out there. In fact, a department’s executive assistant called me up yesterday to “meet the team” at the end of this month. Last week, I met with the director of that department and we dorked out on healthcare quality indicator data and graphs for 90 minutes. She had me hooked at the end of the interview when she said, "You have to be able to build relationships. If you can't build relationships, you can't do this job." I nearly dropped to one knee and proposed to her right then. All of it was music to my ears and, as I drove home, I felt like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.

So if you’re looking for a job or need a stiff drink after a bizarre interview, send me an email. We’ll talk. We’ll commiserate. And, eventually, we’ll soon be on better, saner, more passionate career paths. We just have to learn how to be ourselves. Well, maybe just 80% of ourselves on the first date.