Interview Madness

I've been on several interviews over the past few weeks.  You know, when you wonder what can go wrong?  It turns out quite a bit.....

Let's see what all has gone off the rails this week.  Remember, all of these interviews were panel interviews.

"Here's a computer.  You've got ten minutes to create and Excel spread sheet with all of these parameters."
 Here's the rub:  My computer screen is broadcast up onto the wall in the front of the room, and the computer I've been given is a state of the art Windows 10 machine.  The computer that I use at home and at work are both Windows XP machines.  I'm used to a much older version of Excel, and you could see it in my very clumsy attempts to figure out how to work the damn software and make the spread sheets as pretty as they wanted them to be.

"Given this bag of Legos, come up with 3 programs that you could do with a group of kindergarten children.  You have ten minutes."
Okay, so the bag had 20 Lego's, only one set of wheels, and 3 hinged pieces.  I asked if I had to have this EXACT bag of Lego's.  The answer was yes.  Yeah, I came up with 3 programs, my lessons were decent, but I usually have more than 10 minutes, and a library full of books at my fingertips in order to pull together a program.

As I was following the head of HR down the hallway, I brushed up against a table and the entire table - and everything on it - fell down.

"Tell me about your experiences working with electronic resource acquisitions."
As I worked my way through what I thought were my qualifications, the interviewer looks at me and says "So, no real qualifications, then."  As I stammered and attempted to expound upon what I had been doing, she rolled her eyes "That's not really what acquisitions is all about."  Funny, that's what I've been doing for the last couple of years, and my interviewer has never worked in any library. 

And finally, this weird - very weird - encounter from one interview.  I walked into the room, shook hands with the interviewer, and sat down.  She then proceeded to tell me about how hot her last office was - the average temperature in winter, and in summer.  And how she had to wear t-shirts and flip flops even in winter because it was so hot.  She then spoke at length about her current living arrangements, and then stood up, shook my hand, and escorted me back out the door.  No idea what the heck that was all about, but it was definitely right up there with the strangest interviews I have ever had.

I really don't enjoy interviewing for jobs.  I really hate getting out there and having to prove myself over and over again, but not really ever getting a job.  Searching for new jobs is difficult.  Very, very difficult.  It's time to move on to new challenges, but I really don't enjoy the interview process. 

I'd appreciate some positive thoughts sent my way during this very frustrating job search, if you can spare them!