Thursday, 19 July 2012

Rejection Section

I had an interview today. Teaching interviews are always a pain because they expect you to prepare and deliver a teaching activity, and it's always different, so it always takes ages.

I thought the interview went quite well, and I had a good chance of getting it. The reason I wanted the job are because the college I work at is giving their full-time students one and a half ours a week to complete a GCSE in English. There's no way I can teach GCSE English and improve learners' marks in one and a half hours a week. The place I interviewed at gives them two sessions of one and a half hours a week, and means I could live in the centre of Leicester and not have to commute to work. 

They phoned me up about 5:15 to let me know. The lady immediately said that I hadn't got the job. Crushing blow, no one wants to hear that, and I usually do really good at interviews. She then went on to tell me that I was 0.1 marks behind the person who got the job, did really well, and if they had two jobs they would have given me one. The person who got the job simply had more experience than me, which is something I can't do anything about. To be fair, that probably is the best way to get rejected, but the outcomes is the same as if I'd been shockingly bad, I still didn't get it.

It just makes going back to my long commute, and badly structured timetable all the harder, knowing that I was so close to something better organised. The poor structure of the GCSE's I teach next year is clearly going to impact on my results which will make me look like a worse teacher than I am, and I'm massively limited on where I can live next year. It's just so frustrating.

Anyway, we all have rejection, and I guess I just have to move on. It's just annoying knowing that somewhere you spend so many hours of your life is out of your control. Yes, you can leave your job, but that would be silly in today's job climate, and you can't just pick and choose where you work. It seems so unnatural to spend so many hours of your life in a place you don't really want to be.

It could be a hell of a lot worse though. I could have been made redundant this year, and not got the job. That has happened to some of my colleagues and I should count myself lucky to not have to worry about paying my rent. Perhaps it will all turn out for the best in the end.

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