SECTION B INTERVIEW
Interviewer: Well, I see from your resume , Miss Green, that you studied at the university college. How did you find there?
Miss Green: I had a great time. The teaching there was good and I made a lot of friends. The psy¬chology department was a great place to be. ( Q1)
Interviewer: How come you chose psychology?
Miss Green: Well, at first I didn't have any clear idea of what I wanted to do after university. I guess I've just always been interested in people and the way they act. I wanted to know why people think and act the way they do. It's a fascinating area.
Interviewer: And what was the course like? .
Miss Green: Good. The teachers were all really nice and they had the special approach to teaching. You know they didn't just give us lectures and tell us to read books like they might do in some more traditional places. The whole course was based on the problem-solving ap¬proach. You know they described a pai-ticular situation to us and we discuss what might happen. And after that we do some reading and see if it confirmed our own ideas. That's what I liked best—the really practical orientation of the course. I learnt very well with that style. So for me, it was just great. ( Q1)
Interviewer: I see from your resume that you graduated about four years ago and after that... let me see...
Miss Green:I got a job with the Department of Employment. It was only a temporary thing for about five months. I was a researcher in the department. We design a survey, go out to the factories, and ask all the questions to the workers and the management , then go back to the office, analyze all the data and produce a report. ( Q2) It was quite interesting and I guessed the psychology course at college helped me a lot.
Interviewer:And after that you worked for three years in an Advertising Agency. That must be a bit of change from the Department of Employment, wasn't it?
Miss Green: Well, not really. I supposed the office furnishings were a bit more sophisticated, but the work was quite, similar. I was basically still doing the same thing—designing ques¬tionnaires, going out, asking questions and writing reports. The only difference was that this time I wasn't asking people about their work. I was asking them what kind of sham¬poo they bought and if they preferred brand X to brand Y. ( Q3) Then I make up a re¬port and the agency would use the information in the advertising campaigns. I enjoyed my work a lot.
Interviewer: So why did you decide to leave?
Miss Green :Three years is a long time to be asking people those sorts of questions about shampoo and drinks. No. Seriously , after two years I was in charge of the research department of the agency and .I had one assistant researcher. I guess after two years of doing that, I sup¬pose I felt, you know, I can do this well. And now I want to do something else that's a little different. And there was nowhere for me to go inside the company. It just wasn't challenging for me any more and because I needed a challenge, I decided to move on. ( Q4) When I heard about the position of senior researcher here, I thought that's exactly what I want—the chance to combine my management skills and my research interests working in a much larger department with more varied work.
Interviewer: And you felt that the job description and our advertisement would offer you the kind of challenge you're looking for?
Miss Green:Exactly. Yes. As I said, management in a larger organization and research combined. Also to be honest with you, I heard about the job before it was advertised. A friend of mine, who works here, Mark Austen, told me a few weeks ago that you were looking for someone to take over the job. He described the position to me in quite a bit of detail. And I thought, "Well, , that's exactly what I'm looking for. " So really I'd written my let¬ter of application before the job was even advertised.
Interviewer: I should tell you that with the present cutbacks, we've only got one full-time administer assistant in the section. How would you feel about doing your own word processing, photo copying, that sort of thing?
Miss Green: Oh, I'm used to that. I've done all my own word processing for ages. It's the only way to write really , isn't it? I can type well about 60 words a minute. I did a secretarial course after I left school, so I learnt typing in short hand. Then a few years later, I bought a PC and I learnt how to do word processing, too. ( Q5 )
Interviewer: Well , that's handy. Now in the position you've applied for , you'd have five to six assis¬tant researchers responsible to you. That's considerably more responsibility than you've had before. So you're obviously ambitious. And as you said, you like challenge. I was wondering what you see yourself doing in, say, five or ten years on the track.
Miss Green:Oh, that is a difficult question. Let me try to answer your question in this way. I'm-par¬ticularly interested in experimental design and also in teaching. I'd like to continue the organization and planning site of research, but do some teaching, too. I know that you have lecturers here who do just that sort of thing—some practical worker and some un¬dergraduate and postgraduate teaching. So that's what I really be aiming for—to be a lec¬turer here as well. ( Q5 )
Interviewer: Well, that is certainly a career path that we'd encourage you to follow. But of course it might be necessary to upgrade your present qualifications first. I see from your resume that you've enrolled in an M. A. in experimental psychology. Could you tell me a bit about the courses you're planning to fake?