Interview Frustrations

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Hello,

Today i received another "I'm sorry but" letter after failing another Interview.

A bit of background, I'm a university graduate with a Honours degree in Computing and Network Support and currently working for over 2 years now at my local council doing Service Desk/First line support. I have been looking for other jobs mostly due to the low pay of 15k a year.

Today, i sat down and worked out that 7 Interviews i have attended, i have only been offered only one post (i never took the job due to it being a temporary contract). So that's six fails, it's starting to get frustrating. I must be doing something wrong.

It's all good getting the Interviews, but when i get there it seems that i'm doing something wrong. One major flaw maybe my lack of driving license, which i also seem to be good at failing

Anyway, has anyone got any advice for the next interview that comes along if I'm lucky enough to get one?

I e-mailed the latest company that where i was "unsuccessful" and requested some feedback, hopefully that will shed some light on my inadequacies.

I think i'm going to try and Study for some certs again also, and maybe try and pass my driving test....

Any help appreciated

Stew

 

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Lack of a driving license may well be a turn off for many recruiters - but they would know about that from your CV or application form. It's unlikely that's why you are being rejected.

Interviews can come down to so many things, it's not worth dwelling on what you may be doing wrong. There are plenty of websites out there which give detailed information about what you should try doing right, it's better to focus on that.

When push comes to shove though, the simple matter is that there are still a great number of applicants out there to choose from. To make matters worse, due to the number of redundancies that we have been seeing, you are now competing against more experienced people than ever before.

Even fairly entry level positions where you would normally expect to be up against new graduates or those with little experience are going to be attracting people with several years public sector experience who have just got (or about to get) the boot.

Take heart in the fact that you are getting interviews. That must mean there is something people like about your CV, otherwise it would just be going in the bin.

 

This rings so true with me!

I've just done my 7th Interview in 2 months, and again, like you, have only been offered one and it just happened to be the only one I didnt want as its too similar to what I'm doing now!

See my previous thread 'coping with all the rejection'!

I agree with whats been said above. It seems there is so many people looking at the moment, you only have to look on a certain high street recruitment shops website to see the amount of people going for low level roles, sometimes 80-110!!

Also added to this, they are advertising 1st line roles where they want the candidates to have server/exchange and other 3rd line sys admin type experience! Its crazy, since when have 1st line techs been doing that type of stuff?

Its a nightmare at the moment and I feel for you! I really need to take my career to the next level as I feel like i'm stagnating at the moment and I'm never going to get the chance to prove myself. I keep telling myself it will all be alright and the perfect role will come along, is it me, am I rubbish at interviews? I've always done well at interviews before I came into the IT industry, rarely failing. But now I have lost 6 jobs and hardly any feedback from any!

I will try and keep my chin up and keep going, as everyone keeps saying it will happen eventually, I will be the perfect fit, hopefully for somebody!!!

Thanks for sharing your woes, makes me feel like i'm not the only one.

 

And to add to my woes, 3 people that worked where I am at the moment have landed jobs elsewhere, 1 of them is a network analyst and the other has got a job in infrastructure with no previous exp!!!

I would chew someones arm off for a chance at either of those roles, which is why I still get the feeling its something i'm doing in interview! If they have only got the same exp as me!?

 

I've been getting the same type of responses. I don't usually even get to interview. I have managed to get a phone interview tomorrow so hope fully that'll go well. Admitedly, the IT i do at work is all on a basic p2p network so its pretty easy to trouble shoot and remedy. I didn't know that exchange and server was a line 3 subject because most of the 1st line jobs i've been going for have had these as a requirement like you say. That's put my mind at rest at least, knowing that what they want exceeds the usual requirements. My current role is un structured as i'm the only IT person there, i have to do it all. This means i don't know what level i am actually at. Keep your chin up and keep applying and someone will take you on.

 

Cheers Guys,


Good to know we are not the only one's. But it's true that there as a lot of people applying for these jobs that have more experience etc.

I did get some feedback from my last interview today though

" Out of all of the people I interviewed you were in highly regarded by both myself and ####. There was truly very little between between you all but the successful candidate just had the edge in regards to customer facing experience ".


Could be a generic reply but it is food for thought at least.

 

For starters personally I've never been a fan of pigeon holing roles and responsibilities to 'lines', every organisation is different and will have different requirements of their teams.

Now depending on what exchange tasks are being expected then I wouldn't say it's just a 3rd line thing.

If it's basic exchange admin then yeah I don't see why that shouldn't be something a first liner can do. My wife is a first line/helpdesk worker and works with AD and exchange a lot. Not doing any of the real tough back end stuff, but basic admin.

When you start talking about the configuration and support of the exchange infrastructure itself then yeah it starts to move away from a helpdesk type role, but I wouldn't just blanket say exchange is a third line job. It totally depends on what is it that's beign done.

My first role was in a team where you covered all the various lines and did all sorts, was the best way to do it for that company and felt it was very good for all the team as you got exposed to lots of technologies rather than just being stuck with one particular 'line'

Companies will ask for the moon on a stick with regards to requirements for the role, now in most cases they won't get everything they want so you just have to makes sure you can cover as much as possible whilst coming across as being willing and able to pickup the rest.

Of course if you're up against someone who has a lot of experience then it makes things harder, but I guess for some of these entry level type positions you have to wonder if/why they are going for them in the first place.

 

I agree with what you say, but I have seen loads of supposedly 1st line roles that have so many requirements its hard to believe they can truly be 1st line.
Surely a 1st line role doesnt require you to be in charge of servers, networks, or any operational things that you might break should you not be experienced enough to deal with them, why would a company employ someone with the job title of an entry level type role if you could not be trusted so.

The reason I go for 1st line jobs is that I can eventually learn all that stuff after shadowing people etc to be confident, I mean I can create a basic account in AD or MS exchange as much as the next man, but many of the 1st line jobs I have gone for have acted as if I should know how to configure or mantain servers, to me that is not what that level of role should be about.

Sys admins, and network admins do this type of stuff.

 

Personally I've not seen a role that's advertised as first line also state that you are in charge of the server infrastructure.

If that's the case then the company are either very very small where it's a do everything job, or they've just got their job titles wrong.

Which brings me back to the whole labelling of lines thing again which I'm not a fan of

In my first role the team I was in were in charge of some servers for applications that we maintained. But this was not things like AD, Exchange etc, more like SMS (at the time), some citrix stuff, some mobile device management bits etc.