The second Interview's crisis

None of those numerous books my reading of the last months mainly consisted of mentions it - the crisis of the second interview. Look, the titles like "Your career guide", "ABC for starters" or "Top 500 Dutch employers" will tell you loads of stuff about what you have to wear to an interview, how you need to shake the hands of those you will be talking to or what examples you can give to prove that you really ARE industrious, knowledgeable, creative and an out-of-the-box-thinker (these buzz-words are really annoying!), but they'll never warn you that at the second interview your chance to screw it up is even bigger than at the first one!

And I know what I am talking about. A second-chance starter - that's what I'm calling myself - I cannot afford to make a wrong (career) choice again. Neither can I postpone making one any longer. With 22 en 23 it seemed all right to go and study a couple of years extra, my argument being well, all Dutch people hang around for a while and go to universities (if they do at all) only in their mature mid-twenties; so I thought to myself go, Anna, get yourself one more degree, in a couple of years you'll definitely know what it is you want to do. Never happened, of course, and now, a short week before my 27th birthday, I am even further from knowing what I want... All or at least most of my peers have made something of a career by now, and I am finishing my second (how ironic) university education ('Ganna, in your resume I saw that you studied a lot!') and all I practically can do is part-time selling discount sports apparel and shoes at the outlet centre where I've been making my living for the last 4 years!

But back to my second interview and to staying somewhat positive about myself. I'm just looking for an internship, for god's sake, not even a job, and things are already so complicated! After a couple of futile attempts to find one via an internship intermediary, I was really desperate and followed my friends' advice to really spam the potential employers. According to some of them the statistics were as follows: 20 should be like a real minimum of applications you are supposed to send out, and if you do, then you might get 2 to 3 positive reactions, which means they' ll invite you for an interview and then maybe one of these 2 or 3 will want you. Another number that was mentioned was 50 applications. But, boy, I am glad I stopped at 8 because the need to choose out of even 4 companies that invited me for an interview seems like a torture to me! This way, endless optimism from being demanded filling my entire body, I refuse the first one. Then I still hesitate about the second and the third one still waiting to have an interview with the fourth company. Feels like it's such a pity you cannot sit on three chairs at a time!

And there it comes - a second interview, where you think that there's no need to flirt with the recruiters any more to make them like you and choose for you, because they already did - would you think - as they'd invited you for a second meeting, which almost means you are the one who has a choice to make and they are the ones who have to convince you to choose for them and not for the other. And with all those thoughts in mind - read: thoughts of which chair it is I would love to staying sitting on - you forget to concentrate on the content! You are still being asked questions - no contract has been signed yet by the way! Shame on you that you stopped selling yourself even before the deal has been closed!

And this is where they go asking you about what it is you achieved by now and whether there's anything written by you they could possibly read. And no, there's nothing, because you haven't thought of good answers beforehand, and giving them out of the blue somehow doesn't sound all that convincing. And that's only at this point that you mention that there was ONE MORE place you are having an interview with and thus haven't made up your mind yet as to where you would like to stay. And at the end, the picture they are most likely getting of you is that you actually don't know who you are, you cannot do a thing, you still have to find out what you want in this life, your both studies have been a total waste of time and if you had a chance to start a new life, you would have never chosen to do what you have done so far. 'You' means me here, naturally.
Wrong-wrong-wrong (as Depeche Mode would sing)!

So remember this: don't go rest on your achievements even before you have achieved something! I screwed it up I'm afraid with these people, but I still have that first interview at the fourth company, and I didn't say 'no' to the second employer yet (neither did they say 'yes' to me actually), which means that I am still not such lost a case I was thinking I was when walking away from that unfortunate, miserable, failed second interview by the company I was initially so enthusiastic about!

Still have to give a good deal of thinking to all this...