Being on the Other Side of an Interview & 30 Day Challenge Update

So I recently challenged myself to 2 goals for 30 days. Overall it has been going very well. I have definitely pushed myself to take this seriously in hopes of learning a bit more about self management and habit formation. Ive been very good about carrying my water bottle around but I did give myself a bit of wiggle room with my second goal. Instead of only allowing journaling before bed I have given myself the loophole of that or reading as I have been reading a book on personality and as a Junior in college between my job on campus that I love and dedicate a lot of time to, I don't have a ton of time for some non-required reading. But this book has really intrigued me and I don't feel I am cheating anything by allowing this. I hope to keep it up for the remaining part of my 30 days.
I procrastinated on this post for a while because this was a very interesting opportunity for me. As I mentioned I have a job on campus. I am a Supervisor for UNH's Campus Recreation Intramural Department. It is a job I really value and if I wasn't so sure HMP is where I belong along with it being not particularly feasible, I would make a career out of it. In short, I provide feedback and educate officials. At games, I am there to back them up if there are any disputes, issues, or things get out of hand. I specialize in broomball, ice hockey, and floor hockey as well as working the many other sports we run such as basketball, flag football, and even innertube water polo. If there is any injury I am the one responsible to deal with it and call an ambulance or if its serious enough, administering CPR. A little less than two weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to be on the hiring committee for officials applying to be promoted to my position. I was extremely excited to pick who I would be working with/who may possibly be working for me if I get the promotion I am applying for. Intramurals is an extremely tight knit family of around 15 or so people and our decision process is as much about the interview answers as well as overall personality. We all have to work very closely together and part of the interview process is making sure we are bringing on people who will fit in well with our little family. While this process is a bit different than what we are going through now with HMP since it is an internal hiring process, it was a very eye opening experience for me. If I can give you all, and anyone reading this, any advice as far as an interview, seriously prepare. The one biggest thing that stuck out to me is people had HORRIBLE answers to the question "what is your weakness?". If you haven't thought about this question or read any articles that give tips on interviewing, the answer is supposed to be honest enough that its not a lie such as "working too hard" but its not so bad that people don't want to hire you. To give you an example, I was asked this in an interview. My answer was that my weakness is public speaking, however that I feel this is due to my lack of experience within public speaking and that I am currently taking 4 courses that all require me to present in front of a class and one requires me to even teach 3 classes with a partner. While I wish this wasn't my weakness, it is honest and I have explained how I am working to improve on it. It also (for most internships) is not a deal breaker. Really think about the types of questions someone is likely to ask you. A lot of our questions were not out of left field however I felt a lot of the people we interviewed didn't sit down and think of the types of questions we would be asking. We tried to catch this as well by asking "what is one question you thought that we would ask you today but didn't?" The other thing is to ask questions. We've all been told this but it really does make a difference. In our interviews, we asked the candidates what they thought we did as a Supervisor. Some answers were okay and some were just flat out wrong. We work side by side with officials so not having even the most basic understanding of what we do is pretty inexcusable. But the one person who stuck out the most gave a pretty decent answer to the question and then at the end asked "So you asked me and I'd like to hear in your words, what do you guys do?" He stuck out because almost if not a little more than half of the candidates did not even ask a question even though they themselves were pretty unsure of what we actually did. It was also nice to brag about how hard we work and how much we really do love the job. They sell themselves to you and its nice to sell your position back to someone who did a good job. Asking questions shows you are interested in the position and that you are really engaged in the process. On my first interview I almost prepared a little to much and had no reservations about the program, however when asked if I had any questions I still asked two good questions.
Overall I really valued the people that gave well thought out answers and even if they weren't exactly what we had in mind, were genuine and engaging. We also asked a few fun questions like "what would you do with a million dollars?" and "what superbowl appetizer are you?" and the answer to those also told us a lot about the people we were interviewing. It's very important to stay calm even when you may be intimidated by your interviewer because body language and tone can quickly throw off an interview. I wish I had had this experience before my first interview because I think I gained a lot from being on the other side of the interview process.