Interviews? Should you dare to be different?

I recently had to endure an interview for a job that I had actually been doing for about 14 months. It’s process, you see. Due diligence. And that, quite frankly, is what interviews are all about. They’re not even really about people. So – when it comes to interviews, do you ever dare to be different?

I remember hearing the words during the staff consultation. You’ll need to be interviewed (I remember thinking, do I really? I’ve been doing the job quite well for over a year) but even the words had already made me start to sweat. Because, you see, I’m rubbish at interviews and I really don’t think it’s the best way to recruit people, and I don’t even know why we are still using this archaic and historical formula to appoint people.

I’ve been on both sides of the interview process – part of many panels, and the person being scrutinised. It should be easy, right? To wax lyrical about why you’re such a great performer at work all backed up with lots of STAR examples and to really sell yourself. But this is something I’ve never been able to do. I’ve had a varied career and, even if I do say so myself, I have an excellent work ethic and have excelled beyond imagination at everything I’ve done work-wise. I love my profession, am creative, passionate, innovative and I’ll go to the ends of the earth and back for a good employer. Work is a big part of my life, I’ve made lifelong friends at work, fallen in love at work, and it’s given me so much back that it’s an intrinsic part of me.

But put me in front of an interview panel and I quite literally die inside.

I usually come second best. Is it okay to be second best? I’m a writer so I’m used to rejection, but from start to finish in an interview, I have no idea who I am or what I’ve done or where I’d like to go. I’m pretty rubbish at physical directions, and this is what happens to me when I go into an interview situation. My internal Sat Nav just stops working. And that’s when I start to dare to be different, I challenge people, I offer alternative views when I’m asked the monotonous questions, and I sum people up quite quickly – even sometimes, knowing that I would never be able to work with some of those people interviewing me.

And at the back of my mind there’s always that little whispering doubtful self talk that I was never good enough to get this far. I will always be that little girl from the Council Estate who only got a bath once a week and who never had food to eat, and who sat on people’s furniture outside the maisonette where we lived in Northfield watching yet another poor family get evicted (knowing that we could be next).

I started my childhood living in a women’s hostel in Birmingham with a broad Scottish accent that other school kids would tease me about when I was moved from school to school when we were homeless. I followed in the footsteps of my two older (much more rebellious) siblings in schools where the teachers wrongly assumed I was just another one of those kids from the ‘problem’ family. They were smoking, running with gangs and playing truant mostly. I wasn’t like that. I was very studious, loved reading, and was extremely introverted. My childhood was tough.

Your childhood is your fabric, it’s every fibre of your being and to some extent you can change you with what you wear, but underneath I don’t think you can ever cover up.

So when I sit in front of interviewers who are probing me with questions, I feel my insides shutting down. I can’t let people in, you see. And what’s worse, I would never boast or brag about how good I am at stuff – because when you come from a lower working class background, that’s not the done thing, and back in the day, you could be bullied in the playground for that.

I wait for the questions, and then I naturally undersell myself, and being a real and absolute team player, I never just say ‘I’ but always focus on ‘WE’ because you can never achieve anything on your own, can you? I work in communications, it’s not a solo endeavour. But then the inevitable ‘feedback’ focuses on why you didn’t say ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ – like you’re incapable of achieving anything on your own.

And then I just forget about my many accomplishments. Sometimes it’s quite difficult after a long and protracted career of over 30 years to really remember the best bits, and actually, all of my career has been full of best bits and I’ve always given 100% to everything so have an internal trophy cupboard full of shining acollades, but that trophy cupboard is in my head. And I need to rummage about in there to find the most useful one for the bog standard question I’m asked at interview.

So as I’m being interviewed for the job I’ve been doing for over a year, the killer question is delivered.

What’s been your biggest achievement to date that you’re most proud of?

I stuttered something out. It involved a hamster.

It was only afterwards that I thought about a million other better things I’d achieved during my career. I was always an early adopter and introduced a completely new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for a complaints function at a company that transported over a million passengers a day, I scrapped an entire website in my job in Further Education and commissioned a new one (along with an eCommerce site to offer a suite of business courses where customers could book and pay online), I also scrapped a hefty tomb of a prospectus and introduced an eProspectus complemented by a mini printed guide saving the college about £50k a year, I was inventive with PR stories, giving Guide Dogs for the Blind travelcards for their puppies when they were in training on public transport, I put huge hats on buses, I gave hamsters a bus pass, I introduced a scratch and sniff bus leaflet for Birmingham’s Balti Triangle, I rebranded, I redesigned newsletters, I looked and looked for solutions and innovation for everything.

But ask me in an interview, and you’d think I didn’t even work in comms.

Which is why the process is all wrong. Rather than interview me, invite me into the office for a couple of days, let’s see if we can get along as human beings (my sense of humour isn’t for everyone – and most certainly not for interviews I keep being told – but can’t I dare to be different?). And at least then you’ll be able to find out if I can get out of bed in the morning and stay awake during the day, you can see if I might make you laugh with my dry wit, you’ll be able to give me tasks and see if I can perform them real-time, you’ll be able to see if I’m a good fit for the team dynamics because that’s SO important, and you’ll (or I) will be able to say thanks but no thanks, if those pieces of the puzzle don’t fit. Because it’s a two-way street, isn’t it?

Instead of going forwards with recruitment, we’re actually going backwards. We’re now sending questions to candidates in advance, so those people who are great at selling themselves, can now memorise their answers and be even more perfect than they were before. Regardless of whether they can actually do the job. The ones who can talk the talk, can very rarely walk the walk.

If, like me, you suffer terribly from Imposter Syndrome, it starts at interview. And my alter ego watches as I die inside and we both know what the inevitable outcome will be. You came a close second, Margaret … but thank you for your interest. And feedback? Well, I already know what the panel think of me, because it’s what I think of me. It’s like the ultimate self-fulfilling prophecy.

And it’s the ultimate destroyer of anyone’s self-confidence. It can stop you moving onwards and upwards. Because you’re a real person with real insecurities and the interview environment is just not created to bring the best out in people. It’s the opposite.

So, interviews? Do you dare to be different? What’s the special secret we all need to know, especially those of us who aren’t confident about selling our wares and shouting out our special prices at the top of our lungs on the market stall of recruitment.

Recruitment needs a major rethink and a substantial overhaul. I was even invited to a ‘chemistry conversation’ once and it was like a really bad Tinder date. No. And just no.

Anyway, following the interview, I did get the job (at last) but I’m pretty sure it’s because it was ring-fenced for me and there were no other candidates. And, for that, I’m eternally grateful! Because I didn’t get the inevitable call even though I made some dreadful jokes.