All the jobs I've never had - Local government

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Somewhere towards the end of my final year I started to get really panicky about not having a job. It seemed that everyone I spoke to had been super-organised and had already got a high-flying job lined-up.

Keen to join this band of smug individuals and turned my attention to the vacancy sections of the careers magazines available on campus. One job jumped out at me. The advert depicted London at night-time and had the tag-line of 'Want to work in the coolest place in the world?' (or some other equally cheesy caption). The vacancy was for one of the London borough councils. What the job entailed wasn't clear, but I applied anyway.

My application was successful and I was invited down to London for an assessment day. The other undergraduates I met were all really nice, and I was put at ease because no-one else really seemed to know much about the job either.

The first part of the day was pretty easy. I had to complete several numeracy and verbal reasoning tests (my favourites). However, after lunch things went down hill when I was called into the interview room.

The interview was conducted by someone from an agency who had been tasked with weeding out the weaker candidates. He said that if I had any problems with a question I could pass and we would return to the questions later. The interview went something like this:

Interviewer: 'Why did you choose your degree?'
Me: 'I wanted a degree that would give me great research skills, combined with my passion for languages.'
I: 'Can you give me an example of when you successfully led a team?'
M: 'Er... Nothing springs to mind. Can we come back to that?'
I: 'OK. Can you give me an example of when you did something outside the box?'
M: 'I, um, well... Can we come back to that?'
I: 'Very well. Can you give me an example of when you used blue sky thinking?'
M: 'Sky, blue, what? Can we...'
I: '...come back to that? I'm sorry I think this interview is over.'

With my head bowed, I trudged out of the interview room, vowing never again to go into an interview with so little preparation.

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