Alexis Senge JohnsonTis the season for employment interviews. It seems like everyone around me has been taking the plunge and interviewing to move up on the career ladder before the summer season gets under way in the hospitality sector. Interview season can be a rough time for everyone. It is stressful for those actually going through the process to move forward, and just as hard for those who are being left behind to pick up the slack. In my opinion, the most difficult part of the process is the waiting that comes after the interview.
Although you may spend days trying to perfect your resume, figure out what to wear so you create the right first impression, and practicing your answers to the most common interview questions, in the end there will be a period of waiting. Sitting by your phone waiting for your answer of “yes” or “no” is enough to drive a person crazy. We all question if we said the right thing, asked too much for a potential salary, or even wore the wrong outfit and have now jeopardized our chances. It is difficult to stay calm and move forward when you are jumping up every time you phone makes any noise.
A friend of mine recently reported that he was answering his phone’s every call just so he didn’t miss the call from an HR department with his answer. Although he waited the whole week and still hasn’t heard back as he was promised, he has had the opportunity to talk to every telemarketer possessing his cell phone number. I’m sure that wasn’t his goal for the week, but it is amazing what you’ll suddenly endure when you are waiting for “the” phone call.
This one call lets you know if everything you went through for the interview was worth it. Will you move forward and hopefully up on the corporate ladder or will you still be left in your limbo. It is a tough call to stomach when the answer comes back as a negative one, but I will say that usually a night of reckless eating (or “fat kid night” as I like to call it) will make everything seems slightly better come morning. Usually by the end of the binge, people have realized that everything happens for a reason and there must be something else for which they are better suited out there on the horizon, some where.
Just know this is going to be like hurricane season. You’re going to prepare as much as you humanly can and then hunker down with the hope to make it through it in one piece. It takes a lot of nerves to survive it all, but it’s always good to know that once you get the ‘yes’, you won’t have to go through it all again for a while. For those of you going through this process right now, good luck. Remember, Aqua Net is still the best defense for your hair if you want it to hold up to hurricane strength winds and you would be amazed at it’s uses in an interview preparation situation as well.
