Bad news. My assistant at work has handed in her notice and will be leaving in three weeks' time. Her boyfriend works shifts and she would like to spend some more time with him. Apparently they get to spend something like one weekend together every six weeks, and it's not doing their relationship any good. I know what its like. Significant Other also works weekend, and likewise, we get to spend one every six or seven or so together. Unfortunately - much as I fantasise about it ‒ there's no way I can give up my job and stay at home, so you see, apart from being very upset about her leaving, I'm also a tad envious. Even I would like to stay at home and enjoy time with my other half.
Most of the working week has thus been interviewing potential replacements - not an easy task since as far as people to work with go this one was up there with the best of them. We've done back to back half an hour slots every morning this week, and this even before the ad for the position has appeared on the papers. Apparently, I've got a job people would kill for, and everyone wants to be my assistant. Lucky me!
Now I know this may sound a bit strange coming from a man of my age, but I've never actually had a proper job interview. I had minor ones in my 20s, for small jobs, but never one for a big, substantial position. I've been lucky to have had all the big jobs in my life land on my lap, so text book interviews have never really been necessary. It's always been an "informal talk" kind of situation.
Which put me into all of a panic when it was announced that I would be the one conducting the interviews myself! Thankfully, these are the days when every single situation can be Googled, so no sooner had I entered "job" "interview" "questions" into the search box then I had a million questions at my fingertips, and all sorts of advice coming from all sources. Can somebody please tell me how we managed pre-Internet?
What surprised me during my research was the amount of questions it has become illegal to ask your potential candidates. For example - it is not possible to ask a candidate their age, or marital status. Anything that pertains to race, religion or sexuality is a definite no-no, and don't even think of bringing up the possibility of having children because it might end up in a lawsuit. I swear, reading up on all the don'ts made me even more nervous than if it were me being interviewed for the job!
In the end it all turned out very well. I managed to avoid all the non-PC questions, and actually did quite well at playing Mr Grown Up. My boss who sat in on some of them gave me glowing reports - as did the assistant who is about to leave, who was in the other part of the room and who I asked to listen in and give feedback ("You couldn't tell you'd never done it before," is her report, though I'm not sure whether she's saying that to be nice. Mind you, now that she's leaving, she doesn't have to!). But so far, I've still not seen the one I want. Mind you, I'm only writing this on day three of interviews, there's about another six to go!
Most of the working week has thus been interviewing potential replacements - not an easy task since as far as people to work with go this one was up there with the best of them. We've done back to back half an hour slots every morning this week, and this even before the ad for the position has appeared on the papers. Apparently, I've got a job people would kill for, and everyone wants to be my assistant. Lucky me!
Now I know this may sound a bit strange coming from a man of my age, but I've never actually had a proper job interview. I had minor ones in my 20s, for small jobs, but never one for a big, substantial position. I've been lucky to have had all the big jobs in my life land on my lap, so text book interviews have never really been necessary. It's always been an "informal talk" kind of situation.
Which put me into all of a panic when it was announced that I would be the one conducting the interviews myself! Thankfully, these are the days when every single situation can be Googled, so no sooner had I entered "job" "interview" "questions" into the search box then I had a million questions at my fingertips, and all sorts of advice coming from all sources. Can somebody please tell me how we managed pre-Internet?
What surprised me during my research was the amount of questions it has become illegal to ask your potential candidates. For example - it is not possible to ask a candidate their age, or marital status. Anything that pertains to race, religion or sexuality is a definite no-no, and don't even think of bringing up the possibility of having children because it might end up in a lawsuit. I swear, reading up on all the don'ts made me even more nervous than if it were me being interviewed for the job!
In the end it all turned out very well. I managed to avoid all the non-PC questions, and actually did quite well at playing Mr Grown Up. My boss who sat in on some of them gave me glowing reports - as did the assistant who is about to leave, who was in the other part of the room and who I asked to listen in and give feedback ("You couldn't tell you'd never done it before," is her report, though I'm not sure whether she's saying that to be nice. Mind you, now that she's leaving, she doesn't have to!). But so far, I've still not seen the one I want. Mind you, I'm only writing this on day three of interviews, there's about another six to go!