Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Job Interview Part 2

Whenever you get a nibble, I always find the best approach is to keep in touch with those that you interview with so that they do not forget about you. But when you do not get any response— you immediately think that they forgot. Quite a blow to anybody's self esteem.

Of course, the week before the end of November is not the best time to try and get a hold of anybody, mostly because of that crazy thing called Thanksgiving.

I had a phone interview the week before with the company that I wanted work for, but did not have any reply regarding the status of the phone interview. I finally managed to get a face to face interview with them on December 1st— the day after my contract ended. I was really hoping to have all my interviews rapped up and have a job offer before I left, but that wasn't to be.

On my last day of my contract I wrote to those I worked with to summarize the pleasure it was working where I did:

As many of you may or may not know, my contract here at Northern Trust ends today. Before I go, I want to thank those to whom I have worked with these past several months. Feel free to pass this along to anyone I may have missed.

Even though I have been here a short time, I feel that I have gained experiences that take others years to acquire. It is refreshing to witness the professionalism and the dedication to the process that each person I have encountered has. This makes the environment here a model to look up to and one that I will use as an example in the future. Plus, it is great that you are not all work and no play. There is an ease to conversations that do not always have to revolve around work. It is this casualness that makes it easy to approach anyone to clarify a requirement, or learn best practices.

It has truly been a pleasure working here. I will not forget the experiences I have gained, or the comradery that I have enjoyed.

Be good, and take care,

On December 1st I had my face to face interview. Based upon the address they gave me, I went to the front desk and spoke to the receptionist. They indicated that I should go up one floor and ask for the person I was interviewing with. I went upstairs and saw that there was no receptionist upstairs— so I went back down and asked again. They said they do not have a receptionist and just to ask anybody in the room. (that should have been my first clue).

I did feel funny just walking into a room with people all around and casually asking if so and so was in. Fortunately, everybody was really friendly and helpful. Someone walked be downstairs and showed me the office of the person I was interviewing with (had I known…). After I got together with the person I was supposed to interview with we must have spent a good 20 minutes trying to find an open conference room to interview in. (Little did I know that they rented office space and shared it with several other companies). We finally settled to having the interview in the hallway right by the same elevator I went up and down on. (which was quite interesting to say the least). The person I was interviewing with was so excited about the department he headed up I didn't have too many questions thrown my way.

The next day I got the call and the offer, so if you think about it I was only unemployed for one day.

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