The Interview.

A little late but I was in Melbourne for the weekend. I'll follow up with a post about that soon enough.


I left work at 11:40. paranoid that I was going to be hindered by the orange army and that King George Square carpark would be packed. I didn't have to be there until 12:20. In the end I was chatting to friends in the square just after midday.

I bought some water and calmed myself (a little) and headed up to the office for 12:15. Got to reception and had to buzz to be let in the door, the woman who answered it did so with a rather quizzical stare. I said I had an appointment with Stan (the HR rep I was told to contact) for a 12:30 video conference with the Melbourne office. She changed her stare to a blank one and then one of slight frustration. Stan had just left for lunch and she had no idea what was going on.

She went off to try and find someone. No luck. Asked me what the job was again and went to find someone from a similar division. That person had no idea either but did say i should be applying for a job in the Brisbane division which will apparently be advertised soon (mental note there).

Eventually some guy (I think his name was Jeff) decides he can set me up in the conference room for so we go in there just as another guy walks in, he's booked the room for a sales meeting at 12:30.

The receptionist decides to check the bookings and see if Stan has booked a room, he has, the other conference room on level 22...which no one ever uses and is probably full of paperwork.

Get up to level 22 and find 3 people already in the room, all engineers but none of them technically minded (though one guy must have been alright) they'd been trying to set up the video feed for the last 10mins and it wasn't working. Eventually they got it going and got me set up ready for the Melbourne office to dial in...by this time it was about 12:40.

Claire, who I've requested data from before and is one of those nervous types, always apologising (she is exactly like Miss Bates in the Gwyneth version of Emma, same personality and looks except about 20 years younger) was trying to connect me to them. Running back and forth between her office and the conference room apologising every time and still not sure what she was doing.

Another guy walked into the room and confirmed who I was and handed me a mobile number to call as they were trying to find me in the Melbourne office. I rang but it went to voice mail. Meanwhile Claire is getting closer to connecting with the panel and eventually succeeds.

Time 12:55.

My only thought was 'welcome to the public service'.

So then the interview actually started, they're were 3 on the panel the manager of the group, the senior hydrologist and another hydrologist in the same position that I was applying for. there's also a technical officer in the group, so the available position takes the group to 5 people. Not many.

They asked me questions from the selection criteria, wasn't too bad, of the 7 criteria I'm reasonably strong in 5 of them and good in 1 of the others. A few curve balls in there, which I had to take logical guesses for and hope that they're gauging understanding as opposed to knowledge.

Other things like 'describe your experiences with computers and programming' seemed stupidly vague to me. Almost like asking 'what can a computer do?' but I did my best and hopefully didn't ramble too much.

The video conference factor made things a little harder too, it's not easy to see their facial expressions cause they're not looking directly at you (cause the camera is above the screen), they're almost 2 rooms away and there is a slight delay in response times. So it was a bit hard to tell if I'd answered a question enough or not, with basically no reaction.

I think the other applicants are a bit older than I am, but I do have a good feeling about it. Guess I'll have to wait and see.

Got back to work just after 2pm.

I was told I should know within 2-3 weeks....

*sigh*