Unfiltered Story #57074

Recently I went to 1,5 year of being unemployed, despite my beautiful Master grade on university level. Due to recession (and therefore, many people seeking a job), employers could simply make very narrow selections. In the end, I was almost always rejected due to lack of experience. At one point, I decided to change my strategy and apply for internships. Turned out most companies really needed students (especially under 26 years) for those, but during the time I got two interviews anyway. Looking back, it seems clear to me that in those two cases these were just small companies who couldn’t make profit and needed employees but couldn’t afford to pay them. In both cases, the job interview went like this:

Interviewer: “So, how do you think you’ll do you job here?”

Me: “…..”

I never understood the question in the first place. How should I know when I don’t know the company and the work flow? But even worse, it’s quite obvious that a graduate applying for an internship is looking for experience. So, how should an inexperienced person know how to do his job without any instructions except for a vague vacancy text? Same goes for applying students, I figure.

In my opinion, if someone applying for an internship knows how to do the job already, something’s wrong. Either he/she already has enough experience, making it very unlikely they would need an internship, or he/she is just a great talker, which could imply he/she is intelligent and creative, but on the other hand it could also mean that the person in case is immodest or perhaps even someone who talks himself/herself out of everything, suggesting unreliability. Since then, I wonder why the smooth talkers are preferred over the more modest people… At least I got a freelance job as a lecturer by now.