It was the spring of my sophomore year in college when I was given an opportunity of a lifetime. I had just declared my focus area to be English Literature for my Bacholor’s of Art degree at The Ohio State University. The Ohio State University campus is not very far from downtown Columbus, Ohio. One of Ohio’s distinguished magazine headquarters is in downtown Columbus. During this time, the magaizine was looking for young people who would be interested in doing an internship with their magazine. I was so thrilled when I saw the advertisement in the campus paper. With my fingers crossed, I applied for the internship. To my great surprise, I got called for an interview. This was a highlight in my young life, however, the interview experience was a nightmare.
I was so nervous about the interview that I spent all day at a mall trying to figure out the best outfit to wear. I am not someone that normally frets about what I wear, but I went to four different shops in a mall to find the right style. Once I picked the clothes out, a starved myself for two days to make sure I would have the right look in the perfect outfit. Hint number two that this interview for an internship was becoming way to important to me. I rehearsed in my mind all the right things that should be said to the interviewer until I had every scenerio covered so I thought. The day before the interview I drove through downtown Columbus to find the right streets to turn onto and the closest parking lot to the magazine’s headquarters. Downtown Columbus can be a very hard place to drive. I practiced my route several times to make sure I knew where I was going. The night before the big interview I didn’t sleep very much. I had horrible nightmares and tossed and turned the whole night. When I finally decided to make myself get up, I felt like I had done battle with a ten foot monster that had 10 arms and eyes in the front and back of it’s three heads. I felt terrible. By the time I got to my car which was a mile from campus, I was sweating and already running late. I jumped in my car and headed for downtown Columbus. I went High Street instead of the freeway. I’m not sure why I went that way. High Street has many stoplights. I think every light I came to was red, which took up even more time I didn’t have. When I got to the parking garage all the lower level parking spaces were full. I finally found a spot at the top of the parking garage. I had to run all the way to the interview and I was still fifteen minutes late.
By the time I sat down in front of the interviewer, I was literally a mess. I was so winded from running I couldn’t catch my breath to speak. I can only imagine what that interviewer was thinking. I’m not sure how, but I made it through the interview that took approximately twenty minutes. I’m not sure I made one intelligent comment during that twenty minutes. I remember the interviewer shook her head a lot and was frowning most of the time. Needless to say, i didn’t get the internship. However, I did learn a lot about what shouldn’t be done while preparing for an interview or during an interview.
Sources:
Personal Experience