It’s been a while since we’ve had a guest post in the advice series. This post was contributed by Dorie Morgan, who blogs regularly about navigating twenty-something suburban life.

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I recently had the pleasure of applying for a new position within my company. And by pleasure, what I really mean is a brutally nerve wracking experience. The day before my interview for the position, I realized that not only did I have a five hour interview ahead of me but my five hours of interview fun were being crammed into one day, instead of the usual 2 to 3 day process. It was going to be a rough Wednesday.

The other tough part about this interview was that I was being interviewed by people that I have worked with day in and day out for a year and a half. Two of the interviewers were even hired after me. At first I thought that this could be a good thing. It would be a bit more of a relaxed atmosphere, they already know my work habits and they all have so much on their plates right now that it was possible that the interview could take less than its allotted time.

Wait a minute. They already know my work habits. Good, bad or neurotic, there was no hiding from that now.

These are the people who watched me turn a donut into a Voodoo Doll last spring and leave it on a coworker’s desk because I was tired of him leaving have eaten food on the break room table. FYI: You can write on a powered sugar donut with an ultra fine tip sharpie but a thicker tip will clog with sugar much faster.

These are the people who know about my neurotic tendencies when it comes to creating systems of organization. They’ve seen my FranklinCovey planning system and know that it not only comes with me everywhere but is color coded by event.

But, these are also the people who know that I frequently come in on a Saturday morning to clear away nagging projects that I don’t want to think about at the beginning of the next work week (I like my Monday mornings to be fresh, clean and pretty).

Who I am as a colleague and as a person were already out there on the table for my interviewers to experience.

Fortunately, no one asked me about the now infamous Voodoo Donut but they did ask me about how I developed my complex color coded planning system. It was still an exhausting day and I wouldn’t want to repeat it anytime soon. The upside to it all is that some of my colleagues now have a better idea of who I am and what it is I really do.

I still haven’t heard if I will be offered the position but right now, I don’t think I have anything to worry about.

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One of the things that I love most about guest posts is that I’m able to have advice on topics that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to have input about. I have personally never had an internal interview. Have you? Was your experience similar to Dorie’s?