Yesterday I went to a 70 minute interview for a full-time position at a regional university.
I think the interview went as well as it could have done. It was 70% English and 30% Japanese. I thought I handled the Japanese portion fairly well even though some questions had to be re-phrased for me to get them.
They tried their best to pull apart my mock lesson with a few criticisms which I attempted to deal with by saying I would have explained them in more detail if I had an entire 90 minute lesson instead of 20 minutes.
There were other questions too such as the difference between clothes and clothing and having A cold vs having influenza which were clearly testing whether I could explain English grammar without prep.
The questions in English were fairly generic – Why do you want to work at this university? Tell us about your research, etc.
However, and this is what I’m kicking myself about: The first question was about a mistake in my resume. I left a four year gap in my employment history and the dates were a mixture of Western and Japanese years. I clarified the mistake and told them I had been continuously employed. I then apologized for the error at the end of the interview. I’m angry at myself because that was a “controllable” – at least I could have proofread my damn resume. It was probably because I was applying for another university at around the same time that required Japanese calendars.
What do you think? Have I screwed my chances?
by Ill_Helicopter_1600