First job interview.

[MelissaJKelly 2,124]

I had my first job interview today and landed the job which I was very chuffed about! I was just wondering what everyone on here's first job interview was, where at and more importantly... how did it go?!

[Michael Booth 7,364]

My first interview was at the Newsagents on Meadow Lane, Nottingham. I got the job as a paperboy and saved my wages to buy a £2 Premium Bond. I've still got it but, unfortunately, I've never won anything from it...

Congrats on getting the job, MelissaJKelly. I'm really pleased for you.

[MelissaJKelly 2,124]

Awww! At least you got the job eh?! :D and thank you Michael!

[LizzieM 9,511]

Well done Melissa, no wonder you're chuffed, that's pretty good going landing a job on your first interview!

I also got the job following my first interview but it was a lot easier in 1967 ........ in those days one could leave a job in the morning and walk into another one in the afternoon! I worked as a secretary at Thorn Bendix in New Basford. I was extremely happy there and worked with some fantastic people. I stayed at the same place for 8 years, in different roles.

[loppylugs 8,429]

Glad you got the job. I hope it goes well for you.

Apart from getting a job as a newspaper lad. My first interview just before leaving school was with Ericsson telephones in Beeston. I don't remember much about the interview now but it must have gone o-k because I got the job. This was in 1960 and as Lizzie says jobs were easy then. Must have been about the lowest rate of unemployment ever. You could pretty much take your pick.

[benjamin1945 16,166]

Mine was also in 1960,at wilson ford on park lane Basford as apprentice electrician, £2-19-6 per week,turned it down.

[catfan 14,793]

Well done lass !

[Bilbraborn 1,594]

Go for it Melissa and give it your best. I can recall better my second job interview. September 1969 and a newly arrived 18 year old in Glasgow. I turned up at the arranged interview at the Corporation bus headquarters at 46 Bath Street. Struggling to understand the dialect, I was first told that at 18 I was too young. So I told them that at 18 I was indeed old enough. So they put me through a simple maths test and after much debate, I was given the job. But first it was training at the old tram paint shops on Albert Drive and after a week told to report to Partick bus garage for a month of on the job training. Glasgow is a huge city and at the time had 12 bus depots. Then I was on my own in a strange city where I could barely understand what folk were saying. I soon got used to it all and worked for 5 years as first a conductor then a driver before I came back to live in Nottingham in 1974.

[Cliff Ton 10,473]

I had my first job interview today and landed the job which I was very chuffed about!

But you haven't told us what is is, or where it is, and what you will be doing

Maybe we all want to come and watch you working.

[denshaw 2,872]

Wilson Ford? Me and ayupmeduck both worked there in the seventies.

[benjamin1945 16,166]

If i had took the job in 1960 you both could have been my apprentices then .LOL

[darkazana 1,736]

Well done MelissaJKelly

My first job interview, when I was 16, was for a Saturday job at Sissons and Parkers on Wheeler Gate, I had rung them up as they were advertising for staff in general. They told me they didn't have any Saturday jobs at the main branch but I landed the job at their sister shop, Sissons Paperbacks on the corner of Milton St and Shakespeare St, as their Saturday Girl was leaving that week! I stayed for 4 years, only leaving as I had to do work experience for my college course for 9 weeks and they couldn't release me for that amount of time. I was gutted to leave as I really enjoyed the job, and got all my school and college books and stationery with 30% discount.

[carni 10,094]

Well Done Malissa,

I wish you every success for the future.

As Lizzie and Loppylugs say, it was easy getting jobs in the early 1960s. My first interview was at Woolworths in Arnold. I got the job, but didn't take it. I don't think I knew what I wanted to do really.

There is one interview I will tell you about as it was an experience I will never forget.

It was 1982, My father had just suddenly died in the December at the age of 58,and I had just come out of running a Beer Off for 10yrs. I was still grieving but I needed to earn money, so I applied for Assistant Manageress at a Ladies Clothes Shop In W-ton. The morning of the interview I made a real effort and felt fairly confident. Arriving in town early I went to the Public Toilets for a last minute spruce up. Well!, I had the first and only Panic Attack in my Life, with what had happened to Dad, I thought I was having a heart attack, but it passed. By now, makeup all over my face, confidence gone and late, I decided to carry on. My future boss, who interviewed me whilst eating 4 Pyklets topped with Lurpak and Pate, was very kind and I actually got the job.That was a day I will never forgot. She also introduced me that day to a high calorie breakfast that I find hard to resist!

[MelissaJKelly 2,124]

Thanks for the stories and congrats folks. Have enjoyed reading them :D seems things were a hell of a lot better around the 60s. I'm convinced I was born in the wrong era!

 

But you haven't told us what is is, or where it is, and what you will be doing 

 

Maybe we all want to come and watch you working.

It's actually based in Aspley next to my old school (the all girls one) and I'll be marking exam papers from Cambridge Uni from students all over the world who study English as a foreign language

[FLY2 10,108]

Not my first job interview, but I'd had several jobs from 62-69 when I decided to return to Plessey's . I strolled into the department I was in when last there in 68 , and saw one of the managers. He just said "what do you fancy doing then?". That was it, interview over. I opted for a position as Electronics Inspector.

Many years and jobs later, I was working for Siemens and fancied a job in another dept. I attended the interview explaining my current role etc. when asked what qualifications I had, I finished by saying I had attended a course on "The History &Management of Rock Music" which I had obtained from Basford College. The interviewees eyes lit up, and although much younger than I, he had an avid interest in 60's & 70's rock groups and festivals. We spent the next hour and a half totally absorbed in our tales of gigs, favourite groups and singers and I regaled him with my antics at various festivals . I didn't get the job, but it was interesting to hear a much younger persons view on a genre of music that had been virtually my whole life since 1960.

I had no regrets about not getting the job. Their dept was closed down two years later, and all made redundant.

[FLY2 10,108]

Well done Melissa, that sounds great. Congrats.

[MelissaJKelly 2,124]

Another fab story! And thank you

[StephenFord 866]

Congratulations Melissa. Hope you enjoy the job - I do feel sorry for young people today, who, as others have said, don't have the same multiple options that many of us had back in the 1960s.

My first job interview in 1966 was for a temporary holiday job in the civil service - conducted by an elderly spinster who was manager of the Long Eaton Ministry of Labour office - my uncle worked for the MoL and put a good word in for me. (I should point out that in 1966, married women could not get into the executive grades in the civil service, so she was Miss Something or other...I know, I know - I'm not condoning it, just stating the fact !) Anyway, she didn't have any vacancies, but made a couple of phone calls, and as a result I finished up with another interview with the manager at the Derby office of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. So I got the job of postal draft writer - hand-writing all the sickness and industrial injury benefit cheques for people with surnames beginning with letters S-Z - I recall that there were hundreds of Singhs ! In the event, I decided not to go back to school after the holiday - the feel of money in my pockets (£6-17-6d a week). So I stayed on and was in time promoted to Clerical Officer. After 18 months of rather tedious work, I began to feel severe travel withdrawal symptoms - my dad had worked on the railway, and I couldn't get used to not having free and privilege rate travel. So, early in 1968 I wrote to three different railway departments in Derby. One sent me a form to fill in; another sent me a letter inviting me to ring; the third rang me (at work) and invited me to come for an interview during my lunch break. And so began 35 years in the railway workshops - and as a retiree, I still have the free rail travel to this day !

[catfan 14,793]

It's actually based in Aspley next to my old school (the all girls one) and I'll be marking exam papers from Cambridge Uni from students all over the world who study English as a foreign language

I know exactly where you are working, well done !

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

Doubt it Ben, I worked as an electrical fitter with them, overhauling rotating and fixed electrical machinery, I was in my mid 20's then so skilled.

My first interview was with GT Ranby in Commercial Square in the lace market, for an electrical apprenticeship in 1962, got it but left for a better paying electrical apprenticeship almost 18 months later with the NCB.

As several members have said, jobs came easy back then, most chose the higher paying none trades jobs, I stuck it out on low pay and it paid off in later years.

[MelissaJKelly 2,124]

Thanks again guys. Some interesting stories. Glad I started this thread now :D

[katyjay 5,091]

My first job interview was at Raleigh at the head office on Lenton Boulevard. I had told the careers officer at school I wanted an office job, if you didn't have somewhere already lined up, they sent you to either Boots, Raleigh or Players. I was sent to Raleigh. The interviewer told me that they had a vacancy starting Jan 1 [1962] in the training school, to train to be a punch card operator. He may as well have been speaking Chinese, for all I understood what he was talking about. But as we did in those days, we did as we were told, and turned up the first day to be trained for 3 months on a Power Samas machine. I'm sure if you could find one of these machines now, it was be right alongside the Ark in some museum!

[Cliff Ton 10,473]

Cutting edge technology! https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=power+samas&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=42A9U4z-K42EhQeHz4D4Dw&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAQ&biw=1277&bih=704

[MelissaJKelly 2,124]

My first job interview was at Raleigh at the head office on Lenton Boulevard. I had told the careers officer at school I wanted an office job, if you didn't have somewhere already lined up, they sent you to either Boots, Raleigh or Players. I was sent to Raleigh. The interviewer told me that they had a vacancy starting Jan 1 [1962] in the training school, to train to be a punch card operator. He may as well have been speaking Chinese, for all I understood what he was talking about. But as we did in those days, we did as we were told, and turned up the first day to be trained for 3 months on a Power Samas machine. I'm sure if you could find one of these machines now, it was be right alongside the Ark in some museum!

My Dad worked at Raleigh also but in 80s/90s I believe! I like the look of that machine though! Old machines always fascinate me! Very vintage indeed!

[Riddo 47]

I got a job in the Quality Control labs at P.P. Paynes (Haydn Rd/Hucknall Rd corner in Sherwood) following my first ever interview in late August 1966. It came as a bit of a shock, as I thought I was going back to Fairham Comp for 2 years in the 6th form and "A" levels. It wasn't until the morning of the interview that my dad told me that he'd "applied for a job for you" and that I had to be there at such-and-such a time that afternoon. I didn't have any "interview clothes", so it was a school uniform job. I was also a bit put out as we lived in Clifton and he was sending me for a job on the opposite side of the city!

One evening towards the end of September, there was a knock at the door and my mum came in and said there was a man outside who wanted a word with me. It was Mr Townshend, my Housemaster at Fairham, wanting to know why I'd been absent for three weeks - talk about a farce! It sounds pretty awful now, but I do know we were skint and I suppose dad thought I'd be more use bringing a few extra quid in, rather than going back to school.

We play the cards we're dealt, but I used to wonder how things might have turned out had I stayed on at school, and also felt some resentment at the way I'd been treated. Nowadays that's all forgotten and I just look at my kids and grandchildren and think I'm in a good place whatever happened 50 years ago.