The Chronicles of a Serial Interviewee

Before I go any further, I want it to be known that I do not like going on job interviews. Some people go to one or two in their whole lives, but not me. I must have been on at least 15 in one year. Don’t get me wrong, I know lots of people send out their CVs and never get a response, so I am grateful for the opportunities, but the sheer amount has made me wonder if is it me or is it the way the workforce is structured?

When I finished my first two-year degree in Marketing I started on my long path to employment. I wanted to be something that wasn’t clearly defined, I wanted to do something that no one would really pay me to do. I wanted to write, and not just write, I wanted to be creative, to change the world, to write poetry that made people stop and listen — or read in this case. I had always been a poet, a strange creature, unlike any other around me at the time. At school, we were told to create a poster for something or other and when I asked the teacher what career would fit with the project, her answer was a copywriter. What was that? Go into marketing, write for advertising agencies. Great! There was only one problem, I was, and still am, creative in English and not Greek — the language that advertising agencies wanted in Cyprus. When I did start to get freelance jobs as a translator or slogan writer in English at the end of the 90s and early 2000s, I had to go to a bookshop and send the material by fax. There was no social media, there was no need for content writers and the concept of writing for advertising was very much seen on a national base, not on a worldwide scale.

Let’s back up a bit. My interviewing journey began with the classic roles for women at that time — secretaries and receptionists. Even then I was picky, and I didn’t know that half of the time in an interview is spent reading body language, understanding how to reflect some of the interviewer onto yourself and act, just enough to get a second call. So, I didn’t get many second calls. When I realised that I had to lower my standards, or my CV would always just be filled with the education part, I got a job in customer service…. and then I saw what the real working world was like for the first time. I was only 22, I was polite, I listened to my elders, I tried to learn but it wasn’t for me and the females around me would only show me so much, in case I stole their jobs. A year later I had my second job as a secretary/ writer for a website. That didn’t last long, their and my expectations didn’t match and that was the first time I was unemployed.

I felt so much pressure to find a job, not because my parents or anyone else said I had to find one, but because I had always been a restless soul, searching and wanting to be part of something bigger than me. Nine months, and I don’t know how many interviews later, I got a temporary job as a receptionist at an advertising agency. I enjoyed the environment and the people, but it wasn’t permanent, so I had to still be on the hunt. I spoke with friends about what I was doing wrong, I told them that I would love a job that would also allow me to study further and I realised that language was a great barrier for me. The next interview I had was with a British woman and I made her laugh. She wanted to test me for the position of a technical writer and just like that, I was hired. Guess what, not only did they give me a raise after a few months, they also allowed me to continue my studies and work around the college schedule, and they also paid for my studies. Seems like the universe was listening.

That was my life for the next eight years. I worked, I studied and completed my BA in English Language and Literature, I made friends and then I decided it was time for a change. I went to the UK and did my Master’s in Creative Writing — the bug never left me, never for one second. Fast-forward a year and I was right back, trying to find my place in the job market. This time I tried my hand at teaching English, which lasted for three years. All my friends in my BA course went into teaching so I thought I would try it. Even after writing a poetry collection, two musicals and starting to write stories for children, I thought I had achieved my ultimate goal and now I had to work and make money.

Over those three years, I found myself wondering if I was a teacher or someone who wanted to work in an office. I loved working with kids, I loved finding ways to help them learn, but — there seemed to always be a but — that was not the job for me. The three years were up, and I happened upon a job advert for a journalist in a company that organised summits. I liked the writing, I liked the learning, I hated the environment. I had a loan to pay, I had just gotten married and I wanted to start a family, so I couldn’t just get up and go. I wasn’t quiet about how much I hated the place and soon I was told of a position in a local English newspaper. I sent my CV and sure enough, I got the call. I showed up for the interview, I wrote a few articles as a test and right there and then I was offered the job.

Those were the best five and something years of my life. I started writing for the local news section and then I went into the local events section. I had told my husband when I started working there that I wanted the job of the girl who wrote about the events. Nine months later, and after giving birth to a baby boy, I moved departments and started writing about exhibitions, concerts, performances and whatever else was going on in the local entertainment scene. Again, the universe was listening. But why did I leave then? I was hired and within one month my pay was cut by 25 percent, the banks were on shut down and the economy had us all in panic mode. The newspaper industry was suffering, and I never saw my pay go back to normal. I had a son, we were building a house and I had to choose between a job I loved and a secure job with good pay. And here my real journey in the job market began.

Our son is on the autistic spectrum, which means running around taking him to therapy. I am a mother, I need to spend time with my son and I am a creative person, I need an outlet, or I will burst. I updated my CV and started to send it out. I was offered a job within about three months of searching but when I asked if I could go in a bit earlier every day, so I could leave earlier, they decided that they didn’t want to fill the position. The lesson learned was that maybe I should talk about everything upfront. I had gone to interviews in different towns, I had gone on interviews that had nothing to do with what I wanted, and I had learned that I could not drive two hours a day, five days a week to go to work and come back home. I had learned that showing the employee that you have a drive, that you are good at what you do but you also have a life doesn’t always work. I learned that working remotely is a foreign concept for most people and that getting personal on the first ‘date’ is very dangerous. This is where my years of experience reading body language came in handy.

I learned more than this, I knew what I wanted, I knew that I wasn’t willing to leave a job that I loved just on a whim, even though money did matter. Then just when I was on my way for my summer break the phone rang for a job interview. I said OK, I would go on it when I got back in town. I didn’t really think about it, I didn’t research, and I was just kind of going with the flow — in a professional manner of course. And you know what, the person sitting opposite me made all the difference. We spoke the same language — yes, it was English, but when I spoke about writing, about my passion to learn, about the media, about journalism, he got it — he had worked in my field and he knew where I was coming from. I told him I could do a test and I don’t think he had even considered it for me, but the test came anyway. We arranged a phone conversation and he offered me the job. We spoke for an hour and I told him again about my son, I told him that I could not work until 6 pm and I told him all about my really bad job experiences. He ensured me that I would learn, that I could work on flexible hours and the firm was very family based. I accepted the job, I left journalism behind — at least as a job title, once you have been a journalist you can never not be a journalist — and I entered the world of finance. I am learning to write for the field, I am learning from those around me and I am glad I went on so many interviews because there was a lesson to be learnt from each one of them.