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  • Interviewus interruptus

    I've been out of work for a while. I had been laid off a little over a year ago; I've been doing part time bits here and there, but a full-time position would be something that would make life a whole lot easier. So last week I got called out of the blue by a temp agency with whom I've done business before. (In the other direction: needed someone to cover me when I had to take a day off.) They had a possible full-time permanent position, and am I interested?

    Betcher ass I'm interested. What are you, kidding?

    So I sent them my current resume. (The one they had on file is several years out of date.) They said they'd call me back.

    Fast forward to yesterday. A recruiter calls me back (not the one that called me last week: that one deals with candidates, this one deals with employers). She tells me about the prospective employer; the neighborhood his store is in, what kind of pharmacist he's looking for, etc. She asks me if I can do a phone interview tomorrow morning at 10:30 (i.e. today).

    Sure, I can do that. Better in some ways than in-person, because if I get stumped I can look up stuff on the computer while I'm talking. (although I'd need a quieter keyboard, or he'd know I'm cribbing...) She sets up the appointment, and we sign off, me thanking her profusely.

    This morning at 10:06, the guy calls. He says "We're scheduled for a conference call, but can we make it for 11:00 instead?" Fine with me.

    I spend the interim boning up on what to say. I don't do too well with interviews: I tend to freeze up, and as shadowball pointed out, colleges really don't teach you how to do interviews. Also pulled up a copy of an application that I'd filled out for A & Poo Feed Stores (which I'd never heard anything back on) for examples of "Tell me about how you coped with a difficult situation" and similar.

    And I wait.

    11:30 the phone rings. It's him. Of course the first question is "Tell me a little bit about yourself." Of course it all goes right out of my head. After maybe three minutes of trying to answer this, I realise I'm talking into a dead phone.

    I look up the number on the caller-ID and call him back (from my cell phone, just in case the problem was at my landline). It goes straight to voicemail.

    Great, his phone battery must have run out. I leave him a detailed message, like it says. I try again in a few minutes, this time I get through to him. He says "Sorry, we must have gotten cut off. Can I call you back in 20 minutes?" OK, fine, whatever. That was 11:35.

    Cue crickets chirping for three hours.

    2:36 I finally get tired of waiting and call him back. He says, "Oh, [my real name]. Can I call you back in ten minutes?"

    I tell him I have to go to work now, and maybe it would be better to reschedule this for tomorrow morning; he agrees to this.

    So now I have all the anticipation to do all over again. I started to wonder about that dropped call, though... did he get tired of my fumphering and just hang up on me, pretending it was a disconnection?

    I guess I'll find out tomorrow morning. Wish me luck, all.

  • #2
    Oooooh wow.......

    Good luck with your job search.

    One way I combat nervousness is by rereading my resume and reminding myself how completely qualified I am on this and this and that.....

    You are ready, you've done good prep work & know your sh*t. Keeping that in mind will help you project confidence
    Your story may not have such a happy beginning, but that doesn't make you who you are. It is the rest of your story who you choose to be. So who are you? - Kung Fu Panda 2

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    • #3
      Geh, I hate the stuff that gets asked in interviews.

      "What's your greatest weakness" always gets me stumped, and I end up saying something different every time as I can never think of a decent one.

      Some of my best jobs had interviews that involved very few of these silly, cliche interview questions and more of just a dialogue between me and the interviewer, talking about the job, the contents of my resume, and going into specifics about past experences.

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      • #4
        Them: What's your greatest weakness?
        Me: Interviews.

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        • #5
          Q: What's your greatest weakness?
          My A: I have a tendency to try to do more work than I really can.

          Q: What is your best feature?
          My A: I pride myself on being accurate and thorough. I won't leave a job half-done without a good reason (eg. higher priority projects) and what I do won't be riddled with mistakes. It's a lot more efficient to take the time to do things right than to have to fix things after the fact.

          Those are my answer; obviously other people will have different answers. I like to display a weakness that can also be considered an asset in the right situation.

          ^-.-^
          Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others. - Dresden

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          • #6
            Q: What's your greatest weakness?

            A: I'm trying to sell you a product, I'm not gonna tell you what's wrong with it.

            Jeff Foxworthy ftw!

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            • #7
              Even if he wasn't giving you the brush off, would you really want to work for an employer who can't handle a simple phone interview?
              They say that God only gives us what we can handle. Apparently, God thinks I'm a bad ass.

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              • #8
                Panacea, you're probably right. If the interview is mere chaos, think how bad the company's going to be.
                Customers should always be served . . . to the nearest great white.

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                • #9
                  Shalom, how did it go?
                  "I was only LOOKING, I didn't mean to enter my card's CVV and actually ORDER! REFUND ME RIGHT NOW!!"

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                  • #10
                    Quoth BeenThereDoneThat View Post
                    Shalom, how did it go?
                    Got through to him a second time, we talked for some time, he described how his store worked and why he wanted to change his pharmacist. Conversation went well I thought, for a while.

                    Then he started asking me about salary requirements. As it happens, pharmacists' salaries in the New York area are higher on average than elsewhere, probably because everything else is more expensive than elsewhere. (F'ing PANYNJ just jacked up the tolls on the Hudson River crossings by $1.50. Now it costs $9.50 (inbound only) to cross, and if you don't have EZ-pass (I do) it's even more. This is to pay for the cost overruns on the WTC reconstruction, which has exactly bugger-all to do with transportation. Further on that topic will lead me to Fratching. As this job is on the other side of the Hudson from me and not that easily accessible by public transport, this is a factor.)

                    I didn't want to come right out and name a number; afraid I'll either low-ball myself or price myself out of the market. This happened once, back in prehistory ('86) when I first started working as a locksmith. (The school suggested asking for starting pay of $200-$250 a week, but I was nervous I'd ask for too much, so I said $175 and they jumped on it. Ended up screwing myself out of $25 a week.) So I tried dodging the question, asking him how much the last pharmacist was paid. So of course he dodged that question. Said he didn't pay for degrees (good thing, I only have a B.Sc. and the new guys all have Pharm.D. as their entry-level degree; he agreed with me that the Pharm.D. is meaningless these days), or for experience, or anything but performance. I asked him how he quantified that? He started telling me, but before we got to hard numbers, he got another call and told me he'd call me back.

                    Haven't heard from him since. I'm going to call him tomorrow and see if we can pick up where we left off.

                    (Panacea, I was wondering about that myself... we'll see what happens. If nothing else, this at least tells me that the temp agency found my records; maybe I could get something else from them if this doesn't pan out.

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                    • #11
                      Quoth Teskeria View Post
                      Them: What's your greatest weakness?
                      Me: Interviews.
                      Probably not the greatest idea, to get snarky during an interview, but that's too good a line to pass up ...

                      Shalom, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you, but this guy sounds even less organized than I am, which I wouldn't have thought possible (especially for a business owner!?)

                      About interview questions: I was always told that when they ask for salary, quote a range rather than a specific figure. And yeah, I hate that bloody "What's your greatest weakness?" question too.

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                      • #12
                        Good luck, Shalom!

                        I hate the weakness question, too, but I hate it much less than, "Describe yourself in one word." I was once asked that in an early morning interview, and the only response that came to my brain was "sleepy." Yeah, I didn't get called back on that one.
                        "Redheads have at least a 95% chance of being gorgeous. They're also concentrated evil." - Irv

                        "This is all strange, uncharted territory and your hamster only has three legs." - Gravekeeper

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                        • #13
                          Quoth thatcrazyredhead View Post
                          Good luck, Shalom!

                          I hate the weakness question, too, but I hate it much less than, "Describe yourself in one word." I was once asked that in an early morning interview, and the only response that came to my brain was "sleepy." Yeah, I didn't get called back on that one.
                          Your potential boss obviously had no sense of humour.

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                          • #14
                            Quoth Pixilated View Post
                            Probably not the greatest idea, to get snarky during an interview, but that's too good a line to pass up ...
                            It really depends on the interviewers. I find, generally, that humor helps you. Plus, I use snark quite a bit, so it's better they get a good grasp of my personality before they hire me and both sides find out there's a conflict.

                            Quoth thatcrazyredhead View Post
                            I hate the weakness question, too, but I hate it much less than, "Describe yourself in one word." I was once asked that in an early morning interview, and the only response that came to my brain was "sleepy." Yeah, I didn't get called back on that one.
                            I've answered, "Complicated." It makes them ask questions that actually matter.

                            You could also get away with the Shrek-like, "Onion" too. Explaining the layers bit could be a good, memorable answer.
                            The Rich keep getting richer because they keep doing what it was that made them rich. Ditto the Poor.
                            "Hy kan tell dey is schmot qvestions, dey is makink my head hurt."
                            Hoc spatio locantur.

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                            • #15
                              my last interviewer didn't ask me what my weakness are - she said that she didn't like that term - she asked instead what are some of my "challenges/obstacles that have room for improvement" (or something like that) - she also asked of course what my strengths were.... I kind of confused her, when I answered with a couple of traits on both lists....

                              also the "One word" - Chameleon.... (means adaptable to any situation, but sounds so much "deeper" than that.... lol)
                              I am well versed in the "gentle" art of verbal self-defense

                              Once is an accident; Twice is coincidence; Thrice is a pattern.

                              http://www.gofundme.com/treasurenathanwedding

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