Today saw my first interview.
I can’t quite believe, to be honest, that I even have it.
I applied for the job last Sunday. By Monday sometime, my head had been asked for a reference. I was so convinced I wouldn’t hear I hadn’t even told him.
By Thursday I had been offered a telephone interview on Sunday evening, 8:30pm UK time (9:30am Monday NZ time)
The position was assistant principal in a school in Invercargill. I have never applied for an assistant principal, and didn’t really know where Invercargill was!
The telephone interview was just as nerve wracking as face to face. The advantage is that I wasn’t having to dress up etc, because I had literally just arrived back from a monster race in the North of England.
I could hear on the phone three different people, I think it was a conference call. They had a specific set of questions they wanted to ask, which related to leadership, examples of how my current experience would prepare me for senior teacher.
It was impossible to answer the questions related to the school and the education system. I had read up as much as I could about the history of the education system, the school, special ex, the future plans for the ministry of education, but I seriously felt like all my answers were all hypothetical guess work.
They asked me whether I would consider the position of senior teacher, because they had been looking for two people and the assistant principal post was highly sought after. I said on principal yes, but explained all the legal steps that still had to take place, when they said January.
That was the end of the interview, they would contact me.
Well they did, two days later, to offer me senior teacher. Shit.
Melanie Magowan 