Sometimes you have to bite back

I know truly that there's a lottery element to any job interview and let's face it, there are few skilled interviewers out there.

A poor interview and failure to get the job can be frustrating, but at the end of the day, it's their job to give away and nothing is ever going to change there, so just write it off to experience.

If you go back a couple of posts, you'll read about a harrowing experience with a couple of clueless Chinese idiots I encountered.

In the last couple of weeks, I've been lucky enough to bag a two more interviews. They were both in e commerce, one with a company selling oak furniture online only.

In the beginning the guy was pretty inflexible with the interview time and I was not going to take time off work to attend an interview. He left it with if he doesn't choose a candidate he'd get back to me which he did a fortnight later.

I was on a day's holiday so went over and made a big impression on him. Got through to second interview with a director.

That interview which I also took time out of a day's holiday, I could see was different. Slippery guy, asked lots of questions of me but wouldn't answer mine to him.

Towards the end, I did a gentle close on the guy saying "You've obviously got a picture in your head of the ideal person to do the job, so how do I stack up"?

He point blank refused to answer me.

As I walked away, having heard a lot of discouraging hot air, I thought to myself that this outfit weren't up to much and that job isn't going to be mine. The place was a bit of a dump too.

Received an e mail a week later saying this director's opinion was my marketing skills were more suited to the environment I work in at the moment and not product.

I would imagine when it comes to marketing, agencies would not be in business if they were confined to just marketing service over product and vice versa. You use the same techniques whether it's tanks full of human waste (like I currently create a rosy vision of) or bedside cabinets or even babywear.

I was pretty narked by this guy's lightweight justification for Dear Johnning me, so I wrote back to him and firmly but politely told him his response was just that, lightweight and a cop out. I think guy 1 really liked my work but guy 2 obviously had a problem, possibly with my age.

I attended another interview in a very smart company premises on Monday. I was a little nervous as I'd been told it was a competency based interview and I have an intense dislike of interviews that ask text book questions from books written in the 60s in America.

When I arrived, the guy met me at the door and there began probably the best interview I've had in well over twenty years. He was professional friendly and boy had he done his research. If this was a competency test, then you could have fooled me.

He'd gone through both the websites I work on with a tooth comb and had watched many of my videos, making comment and asking questions about them.

Today, I got a call from his number two and of course I'm disappointed. The number two also a highly professional and pleasant lad went into detail and basically I lost out to someone with current press contacts. Probably someone younger with a degree and a filofax filled with hot phone numbers of people in the press.

In my short discussion with number two, I did in no uncertain terms convey how impressed I was with number one as an interviewer.

When it comes to shitty interviews, I am reminded of one last year where the guy actually asked "where do you see yourself in 5 yrs" ?

Sorely tempted to reply with " in possession of a pulse and an income would be nice", but I decided his humour skills were well below mine and spared him the sarcasm.

So I am now all out of options, it's back to the 5am job search.