Job hunts may be a good thing not to blog, especially in “real time.” However, I am stuck at JFK with departure delayed by a couple hours, and this after already burning about 3 hours here already. So, here are some random and hopefully non-identifying comments.
In an earlier entry, I suggested that I was looking for an academic posting somewhere in New York. That is true, but it is also the case that I am open to other possibilities. I interviewed this afternoon with a company that provides professional consulting services (is that vague enough for you?). I presume that they know about the blog, and may read it. If so, hi guys.
In the most obvious ways, it’s not at all the sort of thing I’ve done in the past. Nonetheless, the organization could draw on a number of my strengths, including visual design and qualitative/quantitative analysis of interaction. Dan, one of the MI students, suggested that I was the real-life version of the Pretender, moving from career to career. Although I play this down a lot in my resume, it’s hard to hide, and despite frequent talk about how we are all going to switch careers seven times in our lives, the gentlemen interviewing me today seemed very concerned about whether I would stick around if they hired me.
I understand this concern; I really do. On the other hand, in many ways I would prefer to work for a company in which everyone is eminently marketable. This seems to be an issue among law firms lately, with recruiters being pretty aggressive about seeking out lateral hires. Would you want to work for a company that hides the identity and abilities of their employees, or tries to compel them to remain as an ethical issue (loyalty) or contractual issue? Or would you rather work for the company who is wide open about the advantages of staying where you are? Google keeps people not because of their outstanding pay, but because they have done the organization right (it seems from the outside) and this is attractive to people on the outside and seems to do a decent job of retaining their own people.
Anyway, given other interviews where it was pretty clear that the company was interested in me (i.e., I had the offer by the end of the interview), it was not as clear by the end of the interview that they liked me in this case. It’s possible I was too forthright about my single, solitary weakness: that I bore easily. Likewise, I am not overly encouraged by their insistence that the work was boring and time consuming. I am still hopeful that there is something here, and that I wrongly perceived the connection, but it may be that this is what it feels like when there is not a love match.
Job interview #1
Job hunts may be a good thing not to blog, especially in “real time.” However, I am stuck at JFK with departure delayed by a couple hours, and this after already burning about 3 hours here already. So, here are some random and hopefully non-identifying comments.
In the most obvious ways, it’s not at all the sort of thing I’ve done in the past. Nonetheless, the organization could draw on a number of my strengths, including visual design and qualitative/quantitative analysis of interaction. Dan, one of the MI students, suggested that I was the real-life version of the Pretender, moving from career to career. Although I play this down a lot in my resume, it’s hard to hide, and despite frequent talk about how we are all going to switch careers seven times in our lives, the gentlemen interviewing me today seemed very concerned about whether I would stick around if they hired me.
I understand this concern; I really do. On the other hand, in many ways I would prefer to work for a company in which everyone is eminently marketable. This seems to be an issue among law firms lately, with recruiters being pretty aggressive about seeking out lateral hires. Would you want to work for a company that hides the identity and abilities of their employees, or tries to compel them to remain as an ethical issue (loyalty) or contractual issue? Or would you rather work for the company who is wide open about the advantages of staying where you are? Google keeps people not because of their outstanding pay, but because they have done the organization right (it seems from the outside) and this is attractive to people on the outside and seems to do a decent job of retaining their own people.
Anyway, given other interviews where it was pretty clear that the company was interested in me (i.e., I had the offer by the end of the interview), it was not as clear by the end of the interview that they liked me in this case. It’s possible I was too forthright about my single, solitary weakness: that I bore easily. Likewise, I am not overly encouraged by their insistence that the work was boring and time consuming. I am still hopeful that there is something here, and that I wrongly perceived the connection, but it may be that this is what it feels like when there is not a love match.
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