Have you ever had job interviews at an agent office in the USA? Are you nervous during your first interview? I know how important job interview because the employer needs to know who we are and what are our skills and abilities are. If we prepared well for job interview, we can get a job easily. If give a poor interview, we cannot get a job. Without a job, where are we going to get money, and how can we live?
As I was a new migrant in the United States, I had some trouble and language problems because English was not my mother language. English was my second language. But When I went to school, from grade 1 through college, I learned English each grade, but we couldn’t speak English perfect. So when I had my fist interview, I had trouble with my interviewer because I did not know enough English. I had no confidence and I was so shy. I decided in my mind after my first interview, I have to go back to school one day.
In my country, Burma, we have English as one of our subjects in school. While taking this class, we were never taught to learn the meaning but taught to memorize. As we were taught to memorize things, we didn’t learn the meaning of any words. Because of our different educational background, I do know that I have a lot of weaknesses in my English. We never spoke English in our class room. When I spoke to a native speaker, I listened carefully to what they were saying. Most of the time, I understand what they spoke. Sometimes I repeated it again and again, yes or no when we speak to each other.
One of my wife’s friend, Mr. Ceu, called me to his house. He had been living in the US for 10 years. He asked me, “Where you want to work?” I replied, “I didn’t know what company was good for me.” At that time, my wife was working in Amazon Fulfillment in Whitetown. So I wanted to apply to Amazon to work with my wife. But some people said they would not work together with your wife because if the company slows down, you might be in trouble. That is why I didn’t apply at Amazon. So Mr. Ceu setting behind his computer. “I am going to apply for NSK Company,” said Mr. Ceu. I asked him what kind of jobs were there. He said, “NSK Company was a Japanese company. They made car bearings. The job was hard, you can work there. The interview was not so easy. So, I replied, “please apply for me online.” Two day later, the agent called me to do an interview. When an agent worker called me, I was so excited because I never had a job interview in the US.
My job interview was on December 2, 2012 at Franklin, Indianapolis. Before I went to interview. I could not sleep the whole night. I had to prepare for the job interview at night. I watched YouTube to see how the interviewer asked the questions and how I going to replied. I did not have enough sleep. Mr. Ceu picked me up at 10:00 AM at my apartment. We went to Franklin for the job interview. He drove 20 minutes, and we reached Elwood Staffing. I went inside, and I wrote my name on sign-in sheet and I sat on the chair. They gave me some Math test. Five minutes later, the lady called me by name “Biak is here”. “I am here. “ An interviewer said, “Come in, how I may help you today. My name is Susan.” I am good, how are you? An interviewer Susan introduced herself and she said, “Tell me about yourself”. She asked me, “How long have you been in the US.”I have been living in the US for 3 months. “Wow! You are very new.” She continued the interview. She asked me again another question. Have you ever been involved in a felony? I replied, “YES.” I didn’t know what she asked me. That is why I replied yes. She looked confused, and she continued her questions. “What kind is your felony? What is felony? She explained that felony is a crime. Oh I am so sorry I was not involved in any crime in the past. She asked many questions. I understood some of them, but some I did not understood. When I made mistake or mis-understood, I became very shy. The interviewer looked in my eyes, but I was so nervous. I couldn’t smile because I was shy.
The interview time was 15 minutes. But I thought it seemed like an hour. I finished my interview. We went home. I was lucky after two weeks, because they called me to work NSK Company. I still work at that company today.