I am a person interested in Human Interaction and cannot get myself to stay quiet in my job. After my last employer had a massive layoff turning to close shop, I had but a strenuous task of searching for jobs and mind you, it is not as it was yesterday.

Especially for women (no gender bias) and being a married women staying with orthodox family, we are supposed to humble ourselves to the fact that we run our family and job both on the basis of the outcome of our household. I did search on-line for a few prospectus jobs and I landed one, or thought so,an interview. I had prepared myself well- learning to be confident, knowing about the company, knowing the office route, bus route, etc and started off. I had reached the office way before time and was done with two rounds. it was decided that I had to attend another round after a couple of days and when I had attended, I came to know that I flunked the interview. I was completely devastated and disappointed; yet I decided to take matters in my own hands and analyze the situation

Fact: They were looking for an experienced professional recruiter of 3 years

Reality: I had only 1 year of experience in recruitment and the rest in other domains and it was not enough! I had not done much research on the position because I had not talked about the position but what I did. I realized that this negligence does not attract attention by rejection! Bottom-line, we need to learn the job description of the position and talk only about that!

Fact: They mentioned they had more roles into similar fields of HR

Reality: Nevertheless I was happy to state that I was flexible in doing any role of the similar field. I realized that this is a test and we must not give in to choices, but stick to only one choice if given a chance. This truly is an assessment for the fact that the interviewer tests our focus skills. For what is one man's food is another man's poison!

Fact: They wanted to know what I did in my previous company

Reality: This is a very tricky question. Do not, I repeat, do not blabber away what all was done in the previous company because they are not looking for other roles; rather they are willing to hear more about the role similar to the vacancy! I learned this hard way around. I spoke less of recruitment and more on training & development, Core HR and employee engagement- which were nowhere related to Recruitment process (the job role they were offering)

Aftermath:

After I knew that I was rejected, I was very disappointed and very frustrated. Being into Human Relations, we are often faced with such situations. I made a small checklist of feedback and asked the employer to reply back;

Dear employer, Thank you for the opportunity for the amazing interview, I would appreciate your feedback, Rate the following in a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being Very bad and 5 being Excellent

1. Very bad
2. Bad
3. Neutral
4. Good
5. Very good

1. Punctuality-
2. Physical appearance-
3. Interaction over the phone-
4. Face to face interaction-
5. Qualification for the job-
6. Communication skills-
7. Friendliness- 

Final notes to remember

1. Always do your homework about the position applying
2. Only speak relating to the position, do not waiver
3. Stick to one job role only (which is preferably the position they offer)
4. Always make way for 2 way communication by mails or texts
5. Do not be over friendly or snobbish
6. Do not quiver while in conversation

Always know your competition too. If a friendly rapport is built with the person who took your first round, we would be in a position to know where we stand too.

Well, all is well that ends well!