How I Winged A Job Interview

Disclaimer

Even though I got the job, I don’t recommend this method. Instead I suggest using this method for last minute extra preparation or for a way to answer questions that you didn’t prepare for.

How It Happened

This summer I am working at the dining commons, a professional kitchen, in order that I hopefully don’t have to work or at least don’t have to work as much during student teaching. Nevertheless, the shifts right now are fairly sparse at the moment and since I want to be making a significant amount of money this summer, I decided to apply at target. Though my part time jobs have all been in food service, I am getting tired of coming home smelling like whatever we cooked or prepped. Lately that has been thyme, which isn’t too bad, but sometimes its onions, or burgers, or french-fries and no one wants to come home smelling like those.

For some reason that is beyond me, it didn’t occur to me that when the representative from target called to set up an interview, that it was an interview and that I should prepare for it. I should have thought about the typical questions like “Why do you want to work here?” and “What’s your biggest weakness?” and what my responses would be. While I didn’t need to go all out in preparation, like I should for my first teaching position job search, I should have done more than I did, which was nothing.

But I Got the Job

Nevertheless, despite my utter lack of preparation, as I mentioned, I got the job. How? I will not deny a good bit of it probably has to do with luck and the fact that not that many people are looking for a job in a college town over the summer, as most people go back to live with their parents. However, I do think that I did a good job of answering the interview questions with no preparation whatsoever. The woman even said she anticipated me being “a great addition to the store”. So how did I do it?

1. Answer How They Want

            This may seem obvious, but give the interviewer the response they are looking for. For example, when the woman interviewing me asked, “Why do you want to work at Target?” I didn’t say, because I don’t want to work in food anymore, because although that is true, it could cast doubt on whether I had the experience necessary to work at a retail store like target. Similarly, I also didn’t say because you’re not a grocery store like Walmart or Giant. Again, while that is true for me personally, Target still has a lot of features in common with Walmart and Giant that could give the interviewer an impression that I don’t want to work there as well.

            Instead I said what I like about Target. I mentioned since I love decorating, I like to shop there for decorations, which lets the interviewer know that I am familiar with the store and not just applying on a whim. Then I said that Target appears more organized than other stores that sell both household items and food. While there were a lot more ums in those sentences, than I would have liked that was probably the hardest question I wasn’t prepared for.

2. Turn Negatives into Growth

            The quintessential interview question, “What’s your biggest weakness?”  Of all the questions I should have been prepared for, this is it. Even people who have never been interviewed have at least heard of this question. Nevertheless, as I said I was unprepared. I decided to think of something I knew that I had struggled with in the past, but had overcome, since I remembered reading in a reddit thread that that was what employers were looking for in answer to this particular question. As I told the interviewer about how I used to rush into recipes without reading them through, I made sure to mention that I have since learned to develop a system wherein I force myself to slow down and read the recipe step by step before starting the recipe.

            The key to this questions and others like it, example: “What’s a time things didn’t go the way you planned and how did you handle it?” are to answer truthfully, but then mention how you learned from that experience and what you do now to avoid that mistake or particular personal pitfall.

3. Bullcrap it truthfully

My strategy for the rest of the questions was as follows “Bullcrap it truthfully”. What do I mean by that? You know how when you’re writing a paper and you know what the professor wants you to say and long it’s supposed to be, but the material isn’t there. However, you still end up with the word count required for the assignment. How do you do that? You analyze tiny details to death and say things mean things you don’t actually think they mean. Or maybe you can’t find the perfect quote to make your point so you find one that has a hint of what you’re looking for and spin it with a bunch of analytical jargon to push your argument in the way you need it to go. You’re bullcrapping it truthfully.

Since I didn’t want to take to long thinking on the questions, maybe only 3-4 seconds, I had to come up with scenarios quickly. Generally, I took the first one that popped into my head and teased out a tiny element and made it the focus of the story, even though it wasn’t actually that much of a part of the moment. I’m not making up anything, but I made 10% of what happened sound like 80%. For example, in answer to the question “What was a time you exceeded someone’s expectations?” I replied that when I was training new culinary apprentices, I had exceeded the cook’s expectations, because I was a new leader, training people for the first time. This was true, as with any new job people aren’t 100% sure you’re going to do a good job, but I think that’s all I got a “good job”. They weren’t that worried.

However, I certainly was. So I added after that, that I also exceeded my own expectations because I was able to describe the process, despite there being a language barrier. Again, true the students I was training didn’t speak English as their first language, but they certainly spoke English fluently. I answered the rest of the questions exactly the same I took the first scenario that came to mind and took a magnifying glass to a small part of that memory so that it answered the interviewers question.

What I Learned

            I learned you should definitely prepare for interviews! Again, while I got the job, I am by no means suggesting that not preparing is a good idea. I also learned I have greatly improved my ability to think on my feet. A couple of years ago I would have sat there in full silence for 15 seconds after each question. Turns out I’ve grown. I am able to come up with plausible memories to answer interview questions and articulate them in a professional manner, enough to get me a part-time retail job at least. I guess all those papers where I bullcrapped my way to an A did teach me something. What are your job interview stories? Did you ever get surprised with a question you didn’t prepare for? How did you handle it?

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Image Credit: "Interview" by Alan Cleaver