Interviews: every professional strives for one because this is what it makes her. Be it a one on one, panel, telephone or Skype interview; these few minutes unlock a whole new level of life and the realization of long career dreams.
As interviewers talk to us, seating confidently as if they no longer have need for such, currently at the echelon of their career aspirations. One question we seem to often ask ourselves is – do these guys know what it feels like to have one’s next phase of professional life determined by a series of questions or a few minutes conversation?
For the past couple of weeks I have been interviewing aspiring interns around the world; Young professionals seeking internship opportunities in Africa, Nigerians reaching to intern abroad, Nigerians abroad keen to integrate into corporate Nigeria, Graduates desperate to get their very first work experience, Volunteers impatient to get their own platform to change the world and so on. But little do these folks know that as I interview them, simultaneously, I am being interviewed as well; with the same set of questions I pose to them, I get to answer some interviewers too.
The truth be told, this experience for me is a dream come true; looking back those years I travel pretty long distance to cyber cafés to access the internet, in fact, in other to make the most of my internet surfing, my friends and I would do what was called “all-night browsing”. But this faithful day, I can remember challenging myself; thoughtfully asking, what is really spectacular about these organizations I travel miles to elicit a positive response from abroad? Why can’t I be the one to globally receive and review applications, interview, and determine who qualifies or not?
During those days, although we come from different locations yet our goals were all one and the same – to travel abroad either as a student, intern or conference participant. It’s been over a decade now that I’ve traded places, once an unaided internship applicant now a social entrepreneur, creating internship opportunities for the young and aspiring around the world. However, as I give thanks for the remarkable turnaround, the reality remains I’m still being interviewed on a continuous basis.
Just as my interviewees are high in hope; implicitly trusting their applications with me become successful and probably replaying the memory of every aspect of the interview we had; how they introduced themselves, convincingly demonstrating what makes them uniquely qualified, what compelling value they bring to the table and so on. In the same manner, I undergo these discomforting emotions; hoping whatever I had said to my interviewers were well received. And should their decisions be unfavorable, what contingency plan B, C and D do I have in place.
But just this morning, out of a gross gloomy darkness of anxiety, comes a ray of light; a gently mild voice on my inside, a comforting reassurance that my interviewers need me more than I can imagine. My initial response to this conjecture was how do I substantiate this intuition? Then I ask myself, isn’t this evident with those I interview? As I receive their unrelenting follow up calls and emails, trying to ascertain the status of their applications, don’t I smile? Saying to myself, if only they knew how much their applications meant to me, they will contemplate picking my calls.
Although, I am yet to get definitive feedbacks on the outcome of my interviews neither have I done the same to my interviewees, the lesson I take home from the experience is - we are more valuable than we think. So my advice to everyone helplessly stuck on the pending outcome of an interview, be certain that regardless of the outcome, you are so much more valuable!
I end this blog with the lines I picked from the One Tree Hill series – “Most of our lives is a series of images, they past us by like towns on the highway. Sometimes a moment stuns on us and says, it happens, and we know that this instinct is more than a flitting image, we know that this moment, every part of it, will live on forever”. This is what it feels like when we prevail upon The Interviewer to unlock our dream jobs out of their hands; the experience although only lasts for a season, the memory and net effects, inerasably linger on forever.
