How Jen Transformed From A Nervous Rambler To A Confident Interviewee!

I distinctly remember being about 4 minutes into an answer for a different interview, and then I had to say, sorry, what did you actually ask again? Because I've gone off on one now. And they had to sort of steer me back. And I just remember thinking, I need to get better at this. So, I interviewed for a locum post in May and started in September. And it was a really competitive post. There was lots of people that applied. I didn't think that I would get it. And by some miracle, I did. And then the pressure was on because, 2 months later, they released the substantive. I suppose in theory I was favourite for the job, but I was totally aware that I wasn't infallible and that anyone else could come along, and I wanted to make sure that I did not mess this up, so I had to do it right. When I'm nervous, I can ramble a little bit, and I was aware that especially in the pressure of an interview, I wanted to be able to get across what I needed to say in a succinct and in a, like, a formulated way that made sense and that I had some sort of framework to fall back on. It was really supportive. I really liked that there was the opportunity for— to practice with people who were going through interviews as well. Um, I think that regionally there have been very few jobs, and it almost feels a little bit awkward to practice with people who are going to the same job as you. For me, it's a bit uncomfortable. So it was quite nice to practice with people and get valued feedback from people on what I could do or how I could change things. I remember reaching out on the group because I was struggling to sort of identify what my unique selling points were, and to, you know, I had lots of projects that I'd been involved with, but I guess how to kind of pull out what my selling points from it were rather than just like, I did this. Um, and having the group, I think having that coaching allowed me to kind of pull those out, get those clear in my head, and then I could go forward with that and work on some answers. I, like, I can't recommend it highly enough. I've got lots of colleagues here towards the end of training and, um, I'm recommending it to everyone. And because it's spread out over a bit of time, so it works well around busy working life and family life, so you're not just trying to cram everything in a day. But it can get you thinking and kind of get the wheels turning and get you ready. And then you've got that really supportive community to check back in on or troubleshoot. And, you know, there's always someone at the end of an email or a post or whatever.