So I had my first interview in 20 years! How exciting! Well, not really. And, I’m not sure it qualifies as an interview. This was a very interesting experience. I am a bit confused about how I felt about it. The company sounded awesome, the position Just Right… But this interview made me feel not great about the idea of the company.
Why? Well, because it was an interview with myself, basically. I logged onto a website, had my video camera working, and was presented with six basic interview questions that were just presented on the screen in text. I then had to answer – on video. No other person involved.
Even more odd was that I could review, and re-do my answers as many times as I wanted to. I reviewed my first answer, and was HORRIFIED. Is that what I look like? Is that how I sound? What did I just do with my face! OMG. It was a truly horrifying thing. I have not done any video (unless you count a few videos of me running my dog in an agility trial), so perhaps just because I am not very familiar with it was what bothered me? I quickly decided to NOT review or re-do any answer.
Why did I decide not to review and re-do any answers? Aside from the torture of watching myself on video repeatedly – that is just not how life works. You do not get to re-do your answers and conversations with people. This is life. It is face-to-face (be it in person or on video chat), or at least voice to voice! A person gets so much from interaction with another person that this recorded answer idea is just BAD. I get they were looking for something different, and if a person wasn’t REALLY interested, they would not go through the torture of a video. But couldn’t they get what they need from the standard email with questions to answer instead of this video Q&A? The job didn’t have anything to do with video, so doesn’t really mesh. I’m open to trying something new of course, but it really was so awful!
In the end, I received the “we have gone a different direction” email that I expected, honestly. It definitely was a memorable experience, though, not one I will quickly forget. Has anybody else had this type of experience?