anything you say

You have the right to remain silent.
Anything you say can, and will be used against you...

In a job interview you don't exactly have the right to remain silent. What you do have is the right to say things in support of yourself. That being said, in an interview there are those instances where you can incriminate yourself as if you admitted to committing a heinous crime. Like when you're asked about teamwork, and you use an example of being the student who has been taking classes primarily online for several years, but when you started nursing school you had to work to reintegrate yourself in the classroom setting, you just might shoot your own self in the foot. Or say you're asked about disagreements with previous supervisors, and you give a real world example stemming from experiences with a previous supervisor (of long, long ago) being Korean-American, and one of the other medics you work with was also Korean-American. Nothing I did was good enough in my supervisor's eyes. I didn't work hard enough, or do enough, or anything....enough. I had to work under the umbrella of a sort of discrimination. I pressed on and did my job to the best of my abilities. Again, you shoot yourself in the foot. Your answers are used against you. You lose a job/externship opportunity because you thought you were giving honest, real answers.

You are thusly labeled "not a team player". How incredulous--in fifteen minutes you are summed up by isolated answers.

It doesn't help that "I actually have great news for you. They were on the borderline with you. They wanted to hire you, but..."

I'm the person who got together a group study session...who stepped forward to help a classmate study because she'd received one of those letters (the kind of letter that tells you to bring your grades up or you're out of this program)...who would be the first to stand up, volunteer and work with anyone to help them succeed.

Yes, Monday I received the email seen in the previous post. I texted or called some of my classmates to find out if they'd heard anything. No one had by Monday night. Yesterday morning people started getting calls...or emails. You see, there were six of us from my school, who interviewed in hopes of being one of the chosen five. Three were chosen and three were not, including moi. The three of us that were not chosen have all had some medical experience, on one level or another. The three that were chosen have not. It may be a big coincky-dink, or the elixir of justification I'm choosing to swallow, but I think that may have been a deciding factor.

I mean hello, if these people liked me so much why didn't they call my references? The other two girls thought their interviews had gone very well, and were just as shocked as I was to read their rejection email. Yeah, the ones who were chosen received phone calls, the rest of us got the form-letter email.

Being me, I couldn't let it go. So I emailed the HR rep the obligatory thank you and also asked for feedback. I just received the call prior to heading to Blogland, and well you know the rest.

Oh well, I still have the decision from Hospital #1 to look forward to, and tons of studying to do.

of all the weird things

Yesterday I had my second nurse externship interview. Let's do a brief dissection of the two interviews and prospective employers, shall we?






First Hospital:

~about 15 minutes from home
~70 bed facility
~opportunities in ED, family birthing, ICU, stepdown, med/surg
~40 minute interview with 6 nurses including department directors, guy from HR, and education specialist
~asked questions about teamwork, problems/challenges and how they were handled,workload, etc. In other words they asked several regular interview questions.
~interview held in a ground floor, service hallway conference room

I walked out of the interview in good spirits, but unsure of how I actually did. I answered the questions authentically. By this I mean that I gave examples from my experiences, rather than robotic, "best" answers. I really hadn't taken the time to come up with manufactured answers, so they got me. good, bad, indifferent...

Second Hospital:

~about 15 minutes from home
~over 80 beds, Planetree Facility
~opportunities in ICU, med/surg, and a unit that is primarily telemetry (best way to describe)
~20-25 minute interview with 3 nursing directors
~they asked siilar questions
~interview held upstairs in a unit conference room

Yet, I walked away from the interview pretty unsure of the chances of me getting the position. This wasn't because of the interview itself. It's because of a request that was made by the HR person beforehand. After escorting me upstairs, she'd stepped into the conference room and then came out after briefly speaking with the directors about the previous applicant. She comes up to me, "Do me a favor. They're going to ask you a question about group projects, setting up a scenario where one of the people in the group didn't pull their weight. They are going to want to know how you would or did handle that situation. I want you to have been that person. I want you to say, 'Oh that was me. I was the slacker. I totally dropped the ball...' Only do this if you think you can. Do you think you can?"

WTF???

I politely told her I didn't think I could pull it off. I wouldn't be comfortable doing that. Being the slacker in that situation is not in my nature, and if I wanted to become Julia Roberts I would have a long time ago!

In her defense...since that is in my nature-to give the benefit of the doubt...I can say this goes with this woman's personality. She seems like a very gregarious, slightly eccentric individual, who would love to play jokes on others. I can get in there with the best of them, I assure you. But during a job interview? Where you don't know any of the people sitting there and how they'll react to such a display?

uh, uh no way...not me, no how...no can do!

One of my classmates, with whom I've become friends, was interviewing next and walked up as I was walking out. The HR person goes into the conference room in between the interviews, so while she did that I chit-chatted with my friend. Out comes the HR person and she makes the same request of my friend. My friend has a "WTF?" look on her face, but she was more willing to give it the ole college try. She said she'd do her best to do it, but didn't want to promise anything.

It had already been a troublesome morning as I'd watched the DVRed ER finale....bawling throughout (nope never got around to studying yesterday morning). After the show I intended to study for a bit, but by this time a migraine had set in. I decided to take the time to take my meds and lie down for a bit, hoping to relieve the pain from my being. The phone interupted my solace after about 20 minutes and never gave up. Between Big B and LB the phone rang about 5 times.

The boys had a half-day of school for exams yesterday, and LB had stayed after for a club activity. He was calling because he needed a ride home. By this time it was time to get ready for the interview, with about an hour to spare before I wanted to leave. I commenced to yelling at them ("them" because both Big B and LB called concerning this after I had deferred LB to his father...) over the phone. Sorry, not the most effective way to handle things, but I was in pain, the nerves were wracking up, and time was a tickin'!

And you want me to come get you???

Evidently I was his only option as Dear Ol' Dad was still up north, about an hour away. Now I had to rush through getting ready so I could go pick him up, and head to the interview. Luckily it's ok to leave a 16 year old out in the car. Can you imagine me walking into the hospital with my kid, and there stands the HR rep?

Who knows? She might have flirted with him!