how on earth has the year gone so fast?
Sep. 6th, 2025 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glassy_witchThe leaves are starting to turn, and the kids all go back to school in a few days. How on earth did we end up so far along the year? I must have blinked far too often.
So, it's been a raft of interviews lately. some good, some bad. None of them have ended with a job offer (although in fairness, a fair few have had me withdrawing my application immediately afterward), and I have noticed that I am increasingly losing my patience with some fairly standard interview questions.
"What are your salary expectations?" irks me beyond all belief. I don't tend to apply for jobs that don't give an expected salary range. If I HAVE taken the risk on a "competitive", then I wont agree to an interview until the range has been confirmed. With that in mind, my salary expectations will always be that the minimum I can *afford* to work for is covered and like anyone, I'd prefer closer to the top end.
"Why are you looking to leave your current role?". Listen mate, we both know that people leave jobs when they want to, for a variety of reasons. They wouldn't be leaving though, if they were 100% happy with the way things were going. It might be that they want a little bit more of a quieter life. They might want to be busier. They might be sick to death of the office politics. They might have encountered the shiny new CEO and been faced with the overwhelming urge to leap off the roof as a result. Why someone wants to leave is rarely going to be something which they can sell with a positive spin. Stop asking it, when we all know that the truth is categorically the LAST thing you want to hear.
"Don't you think this role is a little junior for you?" Nope. Your perception of the role might be such that you see it as junior, or "lesser" than things I have done before, but you don't realise it's those roles I love most of all. Don't judge me by YOUR evident desire to go belting up the corporate ladder. Some of us aren't built that way. We want to do a good job - no, a GREAT job - in an area that perhaps you don't feel is somewhere YOU want to be. That sounds like a you problem, and you should be thankful we don't all see role [x] as nothing but a stepping stone or a stop-gap.
But most of all (and this is the reason why so many of the interviews have ended with me withdrawing my application), don't ask me where I see myself in five years and then act surprised when I haven't said I want your job. Because I do not apply for jobs with the sole intent of finding another one. I apply because I care. Because I want to make a positive difference IN that role, because I happen to think it's an important one, no matter where it appears on your business hierarchy.
But in order to maintain a positive point to this post, there *have* been at least three people I've interviewed with, who genuinely appear to care about their jobs. Those are the sort of people I want to work with.
So, it's been a raft of interviews lately. some good, some bad. None of them have ended with a job offer (although in fairness, a fair few have had me withdrawing my application immediately afterward), and I have noticed that I am increasingly losing my patience with some fairly standard interview questions.
"What are your salary expectations?" irks me beyond all belief. I don't tend to apply for jobs that don't give an expected salary range. If I HAVE taken the risk on a "competitive", then I wont agree to an interview until the range has been confirmed. With that in mind, my salary expectations will always be that the minimum I can *afford* to work for is covered and like anyone, I'd prefer closer to the top end.
"Why are you looking to leave your current role?". Listen mate, we both know that people leave jobs when they want to, for a variety of reasons. They wouldn't be leaving though, if they were 100% happy with the way things were going. It might be that they want a little bit more of a quieter life. They might want to be busier. They might be sick to death of the office politics. They might have encountered the shiny new CEO and been faced with the overwhelming urge to leap off the roof as a result. Why someone wants to leave is rarely going to be something which they can sell with a positive spin. Stop asking it, when we all know that the truth is categorically the LAST thing you want to hear.
"Don't you think this role is a little junior for you?" Nope. Your perception of the role might be such that you see it as junior, or "lesser" than things I have done before, but you don't realise it's those roles I love most of all. Don't judge me by YOUR evident desire to go belting up the corporate ladder. Some of us aren't built that way. We want to do a good job - no, a GREAT job - in an area that perhaps you don't feel is somewhere YOU want to be. That sounds like a you problem, and you should be thankful we don't all see role [x] as nothing but a stepping stone or a stop-gap.
But most of all (and this is the reason why so many of the interviews have ended with me withdrawing my application), don't ask me where I see myself in five years and then act surprised when I haven't said I want your job. Because I do not apply for jobs with the sole intent of finding another one. I apply because I care. Because I want to make a positive difference IN that role, because I happen to think it's an important one, no matter where it appears on your business hierarchy.
But in order to maintain a positive point to this post, there *have* been at least three people I've interviewed with, who genuinely appear to care about their jobs. Those are the sort of people I want to work with.