Intuition and job interviews
One good thing I can say after everything is that my intuition has not betrayed me. I had started to doubt it a while ago as well. In fact, right from April when I was at these interviews at the company I recently called to ask why they actually turned me down at the last minute and never called me back, even after running this same ad, for the same position, over and over again.
At the time, I thought my intuition had betrayed me because I was really led to believe that these people had chosen me and I was going to start this job. So when that didn't happen, I said to myself: something is wrong here, my intuition is totally wrong. So I'm really completely wrong.
And so I began to doubt myself.
That's partly why I called them afterwards. Then I wrote a post here to have time and opportunity to think about what happened. Only then did I realize that actually something was wrong with them, not with me, because they behaved quite inadequately.
Then when I talked to my classmate and it turned out that she had also been to this interview, she told me that she also didn't understand what the salary was, but she had already checked how much people in the same position were paid in Germany and said that actually the salary could not be high for this type of activity. And in Bulgaria - even more. Because, after all, this is why so many foreign companies outsource their operations or parts of them here - because our minimum wage is more than 4 times lower than in Germany. Imagine the profits these companies make here when they pay for qualified employees with university degrees wages far below the minimum wage in their own country, and when they pay corporate tax in Bulgaria, which is also several times lower than in Germany.
So, I didn't find out what salary this company was offering for this position with so many specific requirements for which they were looking for ready and accomplished, trained and experienced personnel, but just recently I came across the same ad ie. job ad in the same sector, but this was for a company operating in London. It was also looking for an employee in Bulgaria and the salary was mind-blowing - €690 gross or £577. While the minimum wage in the UK is how much? £1830?
Well, yes, of course, foreign companies are not to blame for this. And I should not touch this forbidden subject. I just reassured myself that even if they had really approved me, these people weren't going to offer me much, and they were going to let me down right in the beginning anyway, and if I had accepted the offer anyway, I would have felt cheated again. And I want to point out that these people go to some special events organized abroad, mostly in Germany that I know, where they gather young intelligent Bulgarians and lie to them about how nice Bulgaria is, come back, work for companies like us. And when these people go home to Bulgaria, they offer them THIS. And by the time these people feel that they have been lied to, time actually passes, and during that time they have already gotten used to it, they have managed to eventually come to terms with it. Although I know some who fled back to Germany, dropping documents and all, in the offices of these fraudulent companies. Or they became fraudulent as soon as they set foot on Bulgarian soil.
After my conversation with the classmate, I also found and reread the contract of the company she started working for to see what I had missed. How can she accept these terms and conditions and I can't?
Well, I have to say that I was satisfied here again. There was not a single point of the contract that was ok. Not a single point that is legitimate and at least a little in favor of the worker, not just in favor of the company, which ascribes to itself the right to do everything and decide everything - did you do a good job, how much work did you do, whether to pay at all, when to terminate the contract with you from today to tomorrow. My classmate will also fully understand that she has been lied to, but it will be after the first full month or after the training period, after starting the real work process. By then time will have passed, she will have gotten used to it, after all, you don't learn something new like that when you know you won't continue. Many people stay at work precisely because of this, because they say to themselves - why did I learn all this now, I'm already used to this fucking job. Let more time pass, another month, two, a year, five, ten. Right? Isn't that how things go?
And here I needed not only intuition to refuse, although yes, actually intuition helped a lot, but I read a lot of laws, talked to a lot of people, consulted with specialists, weighed information, pros and cons, and it turned out that cons are much more, a whole ton, irreparable.
And I can give one last example of intuition, although it was quite negative and I'm actually ashamed of it, more or less. 😅 It's more about the subconscious, the way it worked back then. Not so much intuition.
I failed an interview this year. And it was an interview for a company I really wanted to work for. It was also for a job I really wanted to do. The company was Siemens. And I was really ashamed to even admit how I failed this interview. It was a resounding failure.
I needed time to think about it and understand what happened, especially why it happened, because what happened was quite absurd.
During the interview, I was given a multi-part exam. The first part went very well and I was very proud of that because not everyone would have been able to do it and I was happy to show that I had knowledge and experience in exactly the area they were looking an employer for. However, the second part went quite badly. So bad that in order to solve the math problems, I literally felt like I was inventing new math.😆 Some tasks I solved this way, others I failed, others I didn't have enough time... it was all super weird.
On the one hand, these math problems were, in my opinion, redundant. On the other hand, the woman interviewing me had already managed to ask me some awkward questions that made me feel uncomfortable, even forgetting my words in German and not being able to answer her meaningfully. And although the interview lasted only a certain 30 minutes, marked by a stopwatch, it seemed to me like three hard hours of questioning, the questions of which I just could not answer.
In short, this woman just made me feel bad from the start. And maybe that's when my subconscious kicked in. I have no other explanation for this brutal failure. My explanation is that my subconscious was sabotaging the whole interview and so I was just forgetting the thought, my words were disappearing from my head, so was the math 😆
I was very, very, very disappointed, but that couldn't change anything anymore. I had to accept it. That different ads appear so rarely on job sites, and when they do…
Well, I guess I shouldn't be mad at my subconscious. Not least because I can't turn back time. When you fail an interview, you can't call the company and say: I wasn't fit for the interview, my mind wasn't fit, my subconscious is playing tricks.
Wherever you go for an exam and something like this happens, it just happened, I don't think anyone anywhere gives a second chance under those circumstances.
But in this case, there is something else here. I think that in this case my subconscious was protecting me. My sleeping intuition purposefully steered me away from this company because my wake intuition failed to work at that moment.
Now you will say, how was this possible, since we are talking about a company like Siemens. Well, I can give examples of many other large and failed foreign companies, so to speak, that set foot on Bulgarian soil, with a rotten working atmosphere, distorted relations, flawed processes. In addition, very often the positions that are announced as possible to be performed remotely are actually so because they have been established with unfavorable contractual conditions for the employee. In these positions, the employer always saves something, and it is not just an onsite workplace. He skimps on salary, on insurance, sets physically impossible volumes of work, etc. Of course, I didn't get around to discussing these terms because my subconscious protected me from this disappointment in advance. I can only guess at the moment what they were.
Well, I have no reason to regret all this, objectively and subjectively. I cannot turn back time, but I also cannot change the practices and traditions of the country that are unfavorable to the employee. That's it.🤷♀️
Thank you for your time! Copyright: | @soulsdetour |
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Soul's Detour is a project started by me years ago when I had a blog about historical and not so popular tourist destinations in Eastern Belgium, West Germany and Luxembourg. Nowadays, this blog no longer exists, but I'm still here - passionate about architecture, art and mysteries and eager to share my discoveries and point of view with you. |
Personally, I am a sensitive soul with a strong sense of justice.
Traveling and photography are my greatest passions.
Sounds trivial to you?
No, it's not trivial. Because I still love to travel to not so famous destinations.🗺️
Of course, the current situation does not allow me to do this, but I still find a way to satisfy my hunger for knowledge, new places, beauty and art.
Sometimes you can find the most amazing things even in the backyard of your house.😊🧐🧭|
Oh, now I don't quite know whether I should regret that this job didn't work out either or rather congratulate you... What a bummer! I really hope that things will be a bit more secure for you again! All the best!
I have been in this dilemma for quite some time now. 😃 Since I started writing about it, which is quite a while ago. As my partner told me recently: "You either accept the unfavorable conditions or stay without a job." Well, I'm still without a job.
Thank you for the kind wishes!🤗