At this rate I think the day the HR person will tell me I have the job I genuinely won't believe it
So for those who 1) care about my job hunting and 2) to whom I haven't talked about it (aka Azzie only, I think? Then again three persons read this blog and two are among my closest friends), I'll talk about my interview.
First thing first, the interview was on Tuesday but I had to leave on Monday and sleep at a hotel nearby since it started at 9am. While I was on the train I get a call from the HR who tells me the time has been changed, it starts at 8:20am now. I start majorly freaking out since I already struggled a lot to find a taxi that could get me there at 9am and that was on SATURDAY. As expected it was kind of a mess to find one, but the taxi driver that was supposed to take me there at 9am called her colleagues and managed to find someone. Thank you madam, you can't even know how relieved I was. So I don't know if it was a test of some sort, since the reason they gave us was that it was because of the schedule of one of the persons who would see us, except there were 5 persons, who were there from start to finish, I'm kind of calling bullshit. Anyway if it was a test I guess I passed.
So I arrive at like 8:10am and I meet the others, we were 8 being interviewed (2 guys and 6 girls) that day, and it was an assessment center, which means it wasn't just interviews but tests of all sorts. I started by feeling very underdressed, I just had a nice top and black jeans, but the two guys and three of the girls were wearing suits... Then we started talking and I kind of died inside, I felt they all had much more experience than me, some had done a placement year in a big company, one of the girls was even from Ecole Polytechnique (the highest rated and most prestigious engineering school in France), and another girl was from China and had studied both in Shanghai, Hong-Kong, and Chimie ParisTech (the highest rated engineering chemistry school in France)... So I started kind of stressed.
At it showed, oh it showed. We all sat around a table, with 3 persons from BASF (the HR and the heads of two of the labs) and 2 from a recruitment consulting firm (including a psychologist), and they talked a bit about BASF, the position, and the schedule for the day. Then they asked us to introduce ourselves shortly, I was second to speak, and I literally felt my throat close, I had the words in my head but I'm pretty sure I didn't say half of it, I didn't even manage to know how I sounded because I was hearing my heartbeat more than my voice. Introducing myself and my experience is something I've done so many times and I'm not bad at it at all, but I just got blocked by stress. I hoped I could get past it quick for the rest of the day.
The second exercise was choosing 4 to 6 words from a words cloud and explaining why we found them important (the words were stuff like "Dynamism", "Team Spirit", "Open-mindedness"...), I think I did a tiny bit better than the first time I spoke, but I was still stammering and having a hard time saying what I was thinking.
Then they divided us into 2 teams of 4, and made us solve a puzzle. I love puzzles. Like, really (by puzzle I mean brain-teaser, not the jigsaw-puzzles where you have 250 freaking blue pieces because the picture is a boat on a blue sea with a blue sky and the only way to solve it is trying every piece like a dumbass). We had pieces of different shapes, a color on each face (2 faces per piece), 4 colors in total, and we had a sheet with figures, we had to choose one and make it. We didn't make it in the fixed time, but they told us only 40% of people made it, and while we were solving it all my stress left, I managed to actually do stuff, to put myself forward, to try things and to give my opinion. When I talked about the morning with the psychologist from the consulting firm she told me it was like I became someone else xD
Then we were back to being 8, and we were put in a situation: we were engineers and had to decide how to approach a client about the fact that we wouldn't be able to meet our deadline because the product fit neither the scope statement nor the legislation. I didn't speak a lot, I was still a bit set back, but I felt that what I said was interesting, so that's ok I guess.
After that, we had personality tests (the PAPI test, which gives you a rose-like answer like this one, sadly we didn't get to keep ours, we only talked about the results with the psychologist), a logic test and a stress-management test (probably the least reliable test of this kind because you had to circle numbers from 1 to 5 depending of how much each statement applied to you in a stressful situation, so, you could very easily be dishonest... I tried not to be (it would have been super-obvious anyway), but I kind of doubt the relevancy of that test. We had the results in the afternoon, turns out I did very well on the logic test, 7/10, she told me not many people are over 6, and the personality test (plus her observations) were impressively accurate. There were good things, like organisation, creativity, rigor, involvement (but not much energy to use, so she told me I'd have to be careful not to go into a burnout. I have no idea where she got the energy part, maybe from my behavior, but she's right), and some less good like a lack of self-confidence and a tendency to self-depreciation (no shit), she advised me to work on it, maybe with a psychologist, since it's mainly irrational... She also told me I was not really introverted (which didn't surprise me, I was surprised I wasn't more in the middle in the MBTI test (I got 73% I), I generally talk to people easily, and I like seeing my friends, but I also like staying alone sometimes, so I don't think I'm far on either end of the spectrum), and emotive, which is pretty much right.
So after taking the tests we went for lunch, talked a bit (that funny moment when one of the others has already applied for a position I applied for a year ago, didn't get it either, and neither of us get why they don't hire anyone since it's been a year and they're still searching), and got ready for the individual interviews. What we didn't know though, was that people would be sent home before those even began, based on what happened in the morning. So two people were dismissed right away, and another two a bit later, so we ended up being 4. During the afternoon I learnt there were around 120-150 appliants, so I consider this a good score.
I didn't get the job, as you may have guessed from the title, and as disappointed as I am I knew my stress attack in the morning and the lack of confidence showed by the PAPI test would play against me, the HR told me I didn't win unanimous support when they talked about us afterwards, and they weren't sure I could manage teams fast enough (we would have started having responsabilities even during the hothouse program). I'm still pretty happy about how far I went.
I also got to see flourflower because I slept at their place after the interview since it wasn't TOO far and I didn't have enough money for two hotel nights, so I ate a great sweet potato-red kuri squash gratin (I usually use US English words and this one is UK English but the word for that in US English seems to be "oven dish with melted cheese on top" so like lolno) with Jamón serrano and cider. The life. (Even though Ico was an ass AGAIN, he started meowing right after he got fed (just before we went to bed), like, why? What do you want from us?) I also finally got to taste a tartlet from the awesome bakery in Bussy-Saint-Georges, 10/10 would recommend.
I also am the queen of fail, I forgot to have the Pôle Emploi sheet signed and stamped when I was there, I have to give it back to prove I showed up at the interview because they paid for my train tickets, and they can ask the money back if I don't. So I went to my Pôle Emploi branch to ask them what I could do, they told me if I got an email from the HR confirming that I was at the interview it was all good, so that's nice, but since then I sent an email the the HR office (it's a global address, and the thing is in Berlin) asking them to do that, no answer, and when I had the HR person I saw during the interview on the phone I asked her to do it, she said "oh okay I'll do it right away" and I'm still waiting... I guess I'll call on Monday.
(Yes this icon is unrelated but I like it and it's kind of is relevant to the ton of cuddles we had with Yuè)
First thing first, the interview was on Tuesday but I had to leave on Monday and sleep at a hotel nearby since it started at 9am. While I was on the train I get a call from the HR who tells me the time has been changed, it starts at 8:20am now. I start majorly freaking out since I already struggled a lot to find a taxi that could get me there at 9am and that was on SATURDAY. As expected it was kind of a mess to find one, but the taxi driver that was supposed to take me there at 9am called her colleagues and managed to find someone. Thank you madam, you can't even know how relieved I was. So I don't know if it was a test of some sort, since the reason they gave us was that it was because of the schedule of one of the persons who would see us, except there were 5 persons, who were there from start to finish, I'm kind of calling bullshit. Anyway if it was a test I guess I passed.
So I arrive at like 8:10am and I meet the others, we were 8 being interviewed (2 guys and 6 girls) that day, and it was an assessment center, which means it wasn't just interviews but tests of all sorts. I started by feeling very underdressed, I just had a nice top and black jeans, but the two guys and three of the girls were wearing suits... Then we started talking and I kind of died inside, I felt they all had much more experience than me, some had done a placement year in a big company, one of the girls was even from Ecole Polytechnique (the highest rated and most prestigious engineering school in France), and another girl was from China and had studied both in Shanghai, Hong-Kong, and Chimie ParisTech (the highest rated engineering chemistry school in France)... So I started kind of stressed.
At it showed, oh it showed. We all sat around a table, with 3 persons from BASF (the HR and the heads of two of the labs) and 2 from a recruitment consulting firm (including a psychologist), and they talked a bit about BASF, the position, and the schedule for the day. Then they asked us to introduce ourselves shortly, I was second to speak, and I literally felt my throat close, I had the words in my head but I'm pretty sure I didn't say half of it, I didn't even manage to know how I sounded because I was hearing my heartbeat more than my voice. Introducing myself and my experience is something I've done so many times and I'm not bad at it at all, but I just got blocked by stress. I hoped I could get past it quick for the rest of the day.
The second exercise was choosing 4 to 6 words from a words cloud and explaining why we found them important (the words were stuff like "Dynamism", "Team Spirit", "Open-mindedness"...), I think I did a tiny bit better than the first time I spoke, but I was still stammering and having a hard time saying what I was thinking.
Then they divided us into 2 teams of 4, and made us solve a puzzle. I love puzzles. Like, really (by puzzle I mean brain-teaser, not the jigsaw-puzzles where you have 250 freaking blue pieces because the picture is a boat on a blue sea with a blue sky and the only way to solve it is trying every piece like a dumbass). We had pieces of different shapes, a color on each face (2 faces per piece), 4 colors in total, and we had a sheet with figures, we had to choose one and make it. We didn't make it in the fixed time, but they told us only 40% of people made it, and while we were solving it all my stress left, I managed to actually do stuff, to put myself forward, to try things and to give my opinion. When I talked about the morning with the psychologist from the consulting firm she told me it was like I became someone else xD
Then we were back to being 8, and we were put in a situation: we were engineers and had to decide how to approach a client about the fact that we wouldn't be able to meet our deadline because the product fit neither the scope statement nor the legislation. I didn't speak a lot, I was still a bit set back, but I felt that what I said was interesting, so that's ok I guess.
After that, we had personality tests (the PAPI test, which gives you a rose-like answer like this one, sadly we didn't get to keep ours, we only talked about the results with the psychologist), a logic test and a stress-management test (probably the least reliable test of this kind because you had to circle numbers from 1 to 5 depending of how much each statement applied to you in a stressful situation, so, you could very easily be dishonest... I tried not to be (it would have been super-obvious anyway), but I kind of doubt the relevancy of that test. We had the results in the afternoon, turns out I did very well on the logic test, 7/10, she told me not many people are over 6, and the personality test (plus her observations) were impressively accurate. There were good things, like organisation, creativity, rigor, involvement (but not much energy to use, so she told me I'd have to be careful not to go into a burnout. I have no idea where she got the energy part, maybe from my behavior, but she's right), and some less good like a lack of self-confidence and a tendency to self-depreciation (no shit), she advised me to work on it, maybe with a psychologist, since it's mainly irrational... She also told me I was not really introverted (which didn't surprise me, I was surprised I wasn't more in the middle in the MBTI test (I got 73% I), I generally talk to people easily, and I like seeing my friends, but I also like staying alone sometimes, so I don't think I'm far on either end of the spectrum), and emotive, which is pretty much right.
So after taking the tests we went for lunch, talked a bit (that funny moment when one of the others has already applied for a position I applied for a year ago, didn't get it either, and neither of us get why they don't hire anyone since it's been a year and they're still searching), and got ready for the individual interviews. What we didn't know though, was that people would be sent home before those even began, based on what happened in the morning. So two people were dismissed right away, and another two a bit later, so we ended up being 4. During the afternoon I learnt there were around 120-150 appliants, so I consider this a good score.
I didn't get the job, as you may have guessed from the title, and as disappointed as I am I knew my stress attack in the morning and the lack of confidence showed by the PAPI test would play against me, the HR told me I didn't win unanimous support when they talked about us afterwards, and they weren't sure I could manage teams fast enough (we would have started having responsabilities even during the hothouse program). I'm still pretty happy about how far I went.
I also got to see flourflower because I slept at their place after the interview since it wasn't TOO far and I didn't have enough money for two hotel nights, so I ate a great sweet potato-red kuri squash gratin (I usually use US English words and this one is UK English but the word for that in US English seems to be "oven dish with melted cheese on top" so like lolno) with Jamón serrano and cider. The life. (Even though Ico was an ass AGAIN, he started meowing right after he got fed (just before we went to bed), like, why? What do you want from us?) I also finally got to taste a tartlet from the awesome bakery in Bussy-Saint-Georges, 10/10 would recommend.
I also am the queen of fail, I forgot to have the Pôle Emploi sheet signed and stamped when I was there, I have to give it back to prove I showed up at the interview because they paid for my train tickets, and they can ask the money back if I don't. So I went to my Pôle Emploi branch to ask them what I could do, they told me if I got an email from the HR confirming that I was at the interview it was all good, so that's nice, but since then I sent an email the the HR office (it's a global address, and the thing is in Berlin) asking them to do that, no answer, and when I had the HR person I saw during the interview on the phone I asked her to do it, she said "oh okay I'll do it right away" and I'm still waiting... I guess I'll call on Monday.
(Yes this icon is unrelated but I like it and it's kind of is relevant to the ton of cuddles we had with Yuè)