Finally got an interview today. It wasn't anything great; just a 30-day contract, but it would've been a little extra money coming in.
But it blew it. Bad. Probably the worst performance of my career. I knew beforehand it was going to be a technical interview, but I wasn't prepared for just how technical. But then, how do you prepare for that when you haven't got a clue what the questions are going to be?
First off, the agency that sent me over didn't bother to forward the interviewer my resume, so I might as well have been someone who wandered in off the street. With no clue to my background or experience I think my inability to provide answers to some of the questions made me look just plain unqualified, and I hated that.
We got on just fine, and I think we'd have a good working relationship, but rapport alone will not get my foot in the door if someone has doubts about my technical ability.
Many of the questions were what I would consider more systems admin than desktop oriented. While I know a bit about what goes on "behind the wall," as my former supervisor used to call it, a lot of the acronyms he asked about threw me for a loop…as did the question that asked what specific port numbers were used for. Not once in all the years I've been working have I had to mess with ports as a desktop support tech. Maybe I've been sheltered. Maybe the fact that in all the environments I've worked desktop has been solidly walled off from systems. Maybe these things are important to desktop techs in the environment he supports, but they haven't been a part of the ones I that I have.
For the record, I now know what the four most common are (IMAP, HTTP, HTTPS, and SMTP) so in the unlikely event I'm asked about them in future interviews I won't look like a complete idiot.
He liked a lot of the answers I gave, but when he said, "based on your earlier answers I won't waste time with these other questions," I knew I was pretty much sunk.
I will be seriously surprised if I get called back. What pissed me off the most was that as I was driving back to the hotel I was thinking about some of the questions I couldn't answer and thought, "Of course! I know what that is!" Duh.
Whatever. A major part of this assignment was just going to be breaking down equipment and moving it from one room to another. I don't think I'm going to need to know port numbers to move and reassemble PCs.
Tomorrow is a new day, and with it will come new opportunities.
Agencies often send you on interviews unprepared. I was once sent straight to work without an interview only to be rejected by the woman in charge who somehow thought I would already have mainframe access etc. and through osmosis know what to do.
You will do better next time. The was a reason you didn't get this job. The bosses were clueless as to what knowledge was required.
You're scaring me. I'm thinking of relocating myself, and though the PC troubleshooting has always sort of been my side gig, I feel I'm getting rusty. I'm a graphics guy on the PC side who always ends up having to fix everyone's computer. I'm really good at sussing stuff out. But I'm not sure how well that will come across in an interview. Gulp. Is it too crazy to hope for a lotto win and an early retirement?
The toughest interview I ever had was with a friend, that asked me one question, "why should I hire you?" I was dumbfounded and embarrassed. From there, I learned that the interview was about getting to know one another, and selling myself as someone they want to hire. I'm not out to impress anyone with my specific knowledge, but the range of my interests and abilites. There's also a lot of subtile "you want to hire me" things that you can do physically and mentally that gets an interviewer's attention.