* names mentioned are not real, purely fictional ** mind the brackets
after exactly two torturous demotivating weeks since i've touched down in Singapore, i finally got a call this morning for an interview at 5pm in the evening!
i practically jumped up in shock
(well cause i was obviously already halfway dozing off from boredom..), arranged my resumes and supporting certificates and quickly studied the route to get to the company. being away from home makes each journey challenging in terms of planning my time and how to get around, which bus to take, which stop to alight at and which route is actually cheaper. unlike having to know every nook and cranny of the Penang island all at my fingertips, travelling around Singapore has it's trills.
so i hurriedly prepared our daily cabbage soup for dinner
(had to diet from the Japanese buffet we had on sunday.. haha will elaborate when i have the time..), showered and put on my best suit
(ok no la.. not so bombastic.. just a figure of speech okays..) and headed off to my first ever job interview!
(no kidding...)i left the house at 3pm, came home at 9pm. yes, freaking 6 hours! i was just as shocked.
let me roughly breakdown the timings:
1 hr 30 mins ~ bus, mrt and walking around hunting for the office
1 hr 15 mins ~ waiting...
1 hr 30 mins ~ INTERVIEW
0 hr 15 mins ~ wandering around cos i kinda got lost LOL
1 hr 30 mins ~ change route to go home
ok, maybe i left the house too early but i dont want to give a bad impression right? and besides, i dont really know the place well, better to be safe than sorry. so after an hour and a half of walking, seating, balancing etc. i was finally in front of the sturdy white door, took a deep breathe and opened it. kinda like the work place. though it's just a small office place on the 3rd floor of a heritage-like building; wooden plank floors, old wooden window shutters. it has this modern clean look to it; totally sealed for the air conditioning system, fairly decorated but brightly lit with bigass white lights and also from the sunlight through the windows. nice =)
anyways, i was half an hour early so they made me wait. but to my surprise, after half an hour, Tom* arrived. so then i was thinking,
"hmm.. i guess i'm not the only one they were going to interview today." then after 10 minutes upon Tom's arrival, Dick* came through the front door and all 3 of us were escorted to their meeting room.
"okay.. so i guess all 3 of us will be interviewed together?" not long till we got comfortable in our seats, Harry* and George* walked in and took a seat respectively.
OKAY. so 5 of us in that small meeting room. rose among the torns. awkwardness...
the interview finally commenced. to my surprise, i wasnt even feeling nervous one bit. instead i was anxiously anticipating it due to all the waiting for the 4 Disney princesses to arrive. however, i felt so intimidated once they started introducing themselves.
Mulan was a Singapore Uni grad working for about 2 years in an analyst firm,
Cinderella was apparently a Malaysian graduate from UM currently working in some chemical firm and at the same time taking up masters in NUS,
Sleeping Beauty on the other hand graduated from Canada and currently working at JP Morgan while
Snow White hasnt graduated but is currently travelling around the world. from that moment onwards, i felt like
a frail withered rose, like a wallpaper while the princesses outshine me in their beautiful shiny perfect dresses.
continuing on to the main point, the interview lasted for an hour and a half!!! it was for the analyst position which is the lowest position available! but then of course, the hierarchy of the company is basically flat with only 4 levels in the entire business. we had to interact with the interviewers through a number of questions about ourselves, tested our knowledge and understanding on the industry and a number of terms widely used in their work,
2 CASE STUDIES to be
answered in 15 minutes and presented (luckily we were divided into two groups *phew*), more Q&A and lastly our selling speech. it has been more than half a year since i had actually put my brains to good use and juice them dry. trying to stand out in polished patent heels among them sparkly fine leather oxfords was hard. since i was only wearing a pair of faux fur-ish kitten heels. hahaha!
now
if i'm able to make it through the first interview, i'll be receiving
3 MORE CASE STUDIES which i'm suppose to solve and send 'em back in 3 days time via email. then followed by the 2nd and probably the last interview with some of the directors. in short, IF i would have made it to up to the second interview, the job will probably be mine. but then again, i'm having mixed feelings over it. a part of me would of course like to get the position but another part of me just aint ready for it. hahaha!
that, was my first ever job interview experience.
so like,
SIAO OR NOT?
can you continue to hurt me badly so that i wont feel hurt by the other people?
