Have been attending a string of interviews lately, particularly for US universities. Once you've been through a lot of them, the whole process becomes kinda routine. It's always the same suit, the same questions and the same answers. I want to think that it helps my application, that it would help me somehow get in to one of these unis, but seriously, there's just no way to tell how good or bad an interview just went. You go in and chat, nothing serious. At the end of the interview, the interviewer wishes you good luck and bye, and you're out there on your own again. Truth is, I suck at interviews. Yea I'm a kind of introvert when it comes to personal things and feelings, AND I feel bad about the idea of actually selling myself to the interviewer. I don't like it, this idea of selling yourself. I'm the type which is the silent worker, the one that leads by example, not words. I thrive on professionalism, brute work and efficiency (the last hardly true as I'm also guilty of procrastination some times), not inspirational rhetoric or flashes of brilliance. I'm driven and motivated, no doubt about that, but that hardly shines through in interviews. It really doesn't help when you can't sufficiently portray these qualities during these interviews, because every applicant have almost the same level of achievements. You're on level ground now. A good interview can really tilt the scales in a person's favour, and I feel that I don't really have the pulling weight when it comes to this. Every time I get rejected, I can't help have the sinking feeling that the cause was the interview. For sure I am as good on the paper as anybody else, so why not me? Why somebody else? There is just no rational explanation...
Going for an interview this Tuesday. Let's hope I do well enough to impress the interviewer that I'm certainly THE BEST candidate for a place. God how I want one...~Zhongy~
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