Would you like a freshly-printed resume?
March 27th, 2006 | by Scott Jennings |I’m in Greenville today, and the reason I’m in Greenville is asleep right now, so I may as well break the skin on the pudding and restore your collective faith in your favorite non-secret blog.
The job search is going fairly well. If anything, I’m encouraged by the number of responses I’m getting on my applications — I’ve been on the phone all week doing screening interviews. A couple weeks ago, I actually went from application to screening interview to office interview to rejection in the course of 48 hours. I wish they all could be like that.
I was really upset with myself over that 48 hour affair, because I was caught completely off guard and can’t blame anyone but myself. I talked on the phone with the vice president of this company at 2pm for about twenty minutes, and at the end of the conversation, he invited me in for an office interview. Is 3:30 good for you? Today? The correct answer was, “I’m sorry, I’m not available this afternoon. Can we schedule something for tomorrow?” My answer was, “Sure!”
I had it in my head that they were testing me to see if I was on the ball, so I raced around, threw on my suit, got some resumes printed, and drove twenty minutes to their office, arriving exactly five minutes early. I looked good, but I wasn’t prepared — the VP peppered me with questions that a day of looking at their website would have prompted me to be ready for, but instead left me looking unqualified for a job that I could have done quite well. About ten minutes in, the very nice man who interviewed me told me with his eyes, “son, you blew it.” The interview continued for forty more minutes. Lesson learned, I hope.
That failure inspired me to pound the pavement even harder, and I’ve been working on three prospects this past week. Door #1 is a support analyst position for a software vendor in downtown Raleigh. I’ve breezed through three phone interviews with them, and they’re bringing me in next week. Door #2 is a similar job for an investment bank in RTP. I breezed through a couple of phone screenings, and they sent me an online assessment that I expected to breeze through since it was called “Technical Support,” but it was ungodly difficult and seemed to be customized to rake me over the coals for every acronym I threw into the “Skills” section of my resume. I followed up with an email that I hope will soften the blow, but I think Door #2 might be closing. Door #3 is a business analyst position for a software house in Durham, but I didn’t realize I was dealing with a recruiter until it was too late. If you’re not hip: the job hunt process is tedious enough, but throw a middleman in there, and just go ahead and don’t hold your breath.
Sounds like I need to pound a little more pavement. I’ll keep you posted. Maybe.
Also, I haven’t eaten in five days.
