I am a terrible interviewer. Every formal interview I’ve had, I walked out pretty convinced that I dIdn’t clearly show who I was, as a professional or as a human being; revealed myself to be a frantic, babbling fool who forgot how to use nouns; and would not get the job
This edition of the newsletter is for the people who might be thinking about interviewing for a different job— the aspiring principals and assistant principals who are polishing their resumes, clicking “submit” on applications, and sitting back to pray for an interview.
But if they get one, then they get to start worrying about that.
This post isn’t actually interview advice.
It’s not about getting a job.
It’s about the ugghhh!-ness of interviewing.
Since beginning my career in education, I’ve interviewed six times.
I didn’t have to interview for my first teaching job. I was student teaching and got a phone call during my plan period from my hometown junior high principal. I’d played basketball with his daughter. He hired me right there, on the phone, probably because he knew I was a decent human being and that I worked hard. I’d also had a pretty decent 18-foot jump shot. That was good enough for him.
Fast forward a few years and a couple counties south, when I decided to move into administration. Since then, I’ve interviewed five times. In each case, I really wanted the job.
In two cases, I really, really, really wanted the job. I mean, I was kind of crazed with how much I wanted the job.
Guess which two I didn’t get?
This is what I learned about myself, about interviewing, and about bouncing back when things don’t work out as I think they absolutely must:
I can’t want it too much. If I have packed my identity into a future job, if I worry I will be embarrassed or flattened by not getting it, I probably won’t get it.
I need to be okay if I don’t get it. This sounds the same as “I can’t want it too much,” but it’s actually the next step in the mental trajectory. I need to remember, as I interview, that regardless of the outcome, I will be fine. I am not the job. I’m me, and the job is the job, and those two things are separate things.
Be awesome. And patient. After one job I didn’t get— one I desperately, manically wanted— part of my despair was recognizing I would need to go back to my current job, where pretty much everyone knew I’d interviewed for a different position, and keep doing it well. A friend said, “Well, then. Bloom where you’re planted.”
At the time, I hated hearing this, but she was right. I needed to keep doing my best work. Put my chin up. Be genuine. Wait.
This life is short; this career is long.
It stings to be told to be patient when you're heartbroken. But patience is a gift, a healer, and a compass. The right doors will open.
I don’t get jobs I shouldn’t have or wouldn’t have been good at. You know how when you’re looking to buy a house, and you find the absolute perfect one, and you put in a bid and you do not get that perfect house and your friends say, “Well, then, that’s not the house for you.” And you’re mad? And then ten years pass and you realize they were right— ? That would have been a terrible house for you to live in. Wrong place, wrong price, wrong town, wrong timing?
Same thing here. Both times I’ve been heartbroken by not getting a job, I came to realize, with time, that those were not jobs I should’ve had. In one case, though I didn’t know it at the time, I was way too young and had too much to learn— something the interview committee already knew. In another case, watching the person who did get the job navigate through it, I came to recognize it was actually a different job than I’d thought it was. I would not have been successful.
Interviewing is meant to get the right people in the right jobs at the right time. It’s not always successful, but a lot of the time it is. It’s all part of the process.
For those of you who are looking to change jobs, remember that you are not in control of so much of what happens during job searches. Don’t let yourself get sucked into believing you are. That’s my best perspective.
Let’s stay curious,
Jen