Drama mama : Dresses up and marches out.

Yesterday I had my first permanent job interview - with the ACT Treasury.

It started off with a Case Study, where I was given some articles and a few questions, a notepad, a calculator, a pen, a pencil and a laptop. I was also given 45 minutes.

I walked into the room, realise the topic of my Case Study was on "Tax Review" and went CRAP. I know least bout tax amongst all, and the little that I know bout it, I don't even really know it well.

So I got to working to "analysing" the articles I was given - a pie chart and two pieces of news cutouts.

Read, read, read, wah lao I tak tau what is going on la wey. So I just pakai crap my way through nia. Wrote out a few points on the notepad, arranged my thoughts. I then spent half an hour to structure my sentence, typed it out, made it sound a lot more informative than it actually is, and space it out with pretty paragraphing.

Okay 45 minutes up. Now to the scary part. Face to face interview with a panel of 3, and a scribe.

Two men, one very pretty woman. All high pangkat managers.

They asked me questions, technical ones, that I couldn't answer. DEATH. Like I wrote in my "impressive" case study some mention about "inefficient taxes could be removed". Then they asked me, what sort of inefficient taxes are you referring to. Uh oh. Caught in a trap that I set up on my own. So then I elaborated about tiny small departments and tax bases that are less productive or unimportant or something, I just stuttered the rest of my answers.

Then they asked "Do you know the difference between the taxes that is governed by the Federal Government and the state taxes?". I'm like, honestly, no I don't have a clue. Then one of the guys was very nice and said "Don't worry, not a lot of people actually know the difference of which is governed by who.". Then I calmed down a bit, then the other guy asks, could you, however, give us some examples of what you might think are state taxes? CRAP. I went, sorry, but I really have no clue. GOSH HOW TEMPURUNG MUST I HAVE SOUNDED. But they were very nice and gave me some examples of both. Then I went, oh yes, I did read some of that in the articles in the case study that I did. DOINK ME.

Then they moved on to more general questions like teamwork and conflict resolution, those WAY more manageable.

Then they asked what strengths do you have that you can contribute to us. I said, erm, I'm meticulous, I like organising stuff (yes, I friggin said stuff), I'm...a happy person [laughs nervously]. Good thing they laughed with me and one of them said, that's good, we like happy people. *smiles*

Then the lady asked what my career aspirations are, so I said, ultimately I want to own my own business. Like a food and beverage business. Then she said "Oh wow, that's NOWHERE near what you'd do here in the Treasury. So you're into the hospitality thing?". I was like...erm yeah, very different, but I'm a big fan of hospitality and customer service.

At this point, they all nodded their heads and smiled. "We like customer service. Customer service is good." PHEW.

So. I like screwed up answering them technical knowledgeable questions, but they were all VERY nice and VERY smiley, and that definitely helped with the jitters. So, they seemed to nod a lot and smile a lot and quite liked me, I guess. But I sounded like so dumb, so they might not like that.

So, *crosses fingers* see how lah! There are 8 to 9 spots to be filled and I will know by end of August-ish. Will DEFINITELY announce if I get the job then.