Interviewing from the other Side

Sunday night I went to drink cocktail makali with my cousins. I tried strawberry, kiwi, and pineapple. Makali is a milky white Korean traditional drink made out of wine. By itself, it tastes okay.. The cocktail ones are delicious! I didn't bring my camera to take pictures but next time I definitely will....Because of course, I'm going to go back.

Monday I had to wake up at 6:45AM in order to get ready and subway ride for an hour and half to the Seoul Immigration office. It was so inefficient and disorganized as I mentioned in a previous post but since Yuri and I got there early, we were able to get out of there within an hour, even though we didn't have an appointment.

So while I'm waiting for my number to be called at the immigration office, I get a call from my boss asking if I wanted to come into work today. Mind you, I was exhausted from the morning commute and so all I was thinking about was going to sleep before I had class again at 4pm. But, he hold me they were conducting interviews for part-time and full-time positions and that it would be a good opportunity to see what it was like on the other side.

I got to squeeze in a 40 minute nap before having to get ready and go to the interviews. In the conference room, it was me and 3 other members of the team on one side of a table and then 3 chairs on the other side. It was apparently a group style interview.

As soon as the first group walked in, I was more nervous because I wasn't sure what to do. He never introduced me as an intern. Instead I looked like a full time consultant interviewing them!! It was pretty intense and quite exciting. Although I could only understand half of what they were saying, I graded them pretty much the same as the other evaluators. He asked questions about what they thought the position was about, how they would rate themselves in knowledge, motivation, personality out of 100%, and some other questions I couldn't really understand.

Part-time interviews were easier. But definitely he said the full time ones were harder because you can't really fire them once they're hired...so they have to be very careful on who they choose. During the full time group interview, there was this recent college graduate and you could tell he was really nervous. The whole time he had his hands in a fist, arms completely stretched out with one on top of each leg and sat up really straight. He was actually really good though. The interviewer asked why he was sitting like that towards the end and he said he had asked a friend for some advice and thats what he told him to do. It was actually really funny and that loosened up the tensity.

I had to leave during the first full time interview group. As I was going to the elevator, I ran into the stiff interviewee and he bowed to me. I felt like a power woman...little did they know I was just an intern LOL