interview

During the past weeks and months I have sent my CV here and there and everywhere. At first I was patient with replies and tried not to get discouraged by several “no”-emails. Now, I am getting stressed and starting to panic, as I still have nothing. So, yesterday, to make sure I will at least get somewhere I phoned up one of the people I had contacted by mail.

The voice on the other end of the phone sounded nice and friendly and she right away recognised my name. I took that as a positive sign. She thanked me for phoning and apologised for taking so long to get in touch with me. “But since you phoned I could ask you some questions.” Sure, why not. The few questions ended up being a little over 30min phone interview – excellent. In general, this would have been a piece of cake, no big deal, but this time, it was in Finnish. I had to answer to these questions in Finnish. I had no idea what the research question for my thesis is. I knew more or less what I study but had no idea what my courses are about. I just didn’t know anything.

I tumbled through the interview by using English (and few French) terms and hoped to make some sense. Finally she asked the question I had waited for – “So, working in English would not be a problem?” I now knew what to say.

My competition consists of two other students – I just hope they hesitated with that last one.