Tales From The Job Hunt

    I'm still struggling with my emotions and the job hunt so here's some weird and funny (?) stories lately.

    Incident one came at me through a recruiter. Recruiter thought this was right up my alley (it was) and wanted to send over my info immediately to the client. I said sure. The next day, recruiter comes back to say the client was interested, just wanted to see some references. I provide them. My references were apparently glowing. Within 24 hours the recruiter calls me again to say that the client wants and interview soon, this week. I say sure.

    Everything's been full of action, right? A sense of urgency, excitement perhaps? I go in expecting enthusiasm.

    I get the deadest reception I ever have. One of the guys doesn't even want to look at me. The other keeps looking between me and my resume with a slightly confused expression, as if he doesn't understand why I'm here. Doesn't understand why my HVAC background has me applying to an HVAC contractor.

    The other weird part was that they had nothing to say about the role. Nothing about what they do, nothing about what day to day operations is like. They have no questions about how I work or handle stress or anything. The one who doesn't want to look at me says to the other, while I'm still in the room, that I'm not getting this position. I'm not what they're looking for. I was in and out in fifteen minutes.

    Naturally I called the recruiter to talk about it and ask if whoever he spoke to said anything. I can only assume that whoever the recruiter was speaking to was not one of the people who interviewed me because they did not give the impression they were prepared or enthusiastic to give a job interview that day. No, I have never heard from that recruiter since.

    Incident two was something I found and applied to. I get a call from HR pretty quickly asking to schedule a 9 AM interview later that week. I say yes, of course. The person who calls me does not send a confirmation email. Honestly I did not write down anything from their call because they called before I'd had coffee.

    At 8:55 AM the day of the interview I walk in the door to... nothing. No receptionist. I can see a conference room with a good seven or eight or nine people in it to the side.

    9:00 AM I call back the number that set the interview up. A different person answers. The call goes to a generic line and not an office number. The person who picks up has heard nothing about me having an interview this morning.

    Just shy of 9:30 AM when I was probably about 60 seconds from walking out someone walks up with a printout of my resume and sees me into his office. It was my resume, I was not pranked. To be charitable I think my interviewer had been double booked on meetings and no one caught it. I did send a thank-you email for the interview and specifically thanked him for his patience in granting me an interview at all, but what the hell.

    Why do we have receptionists if they don't know who has outsiders coming from a meeting? The other time isn't awkward enough to list here but this isn't the first time I get a blank look from the front desk.

    Incident three was a big frustrating one. I apply on a job site for a position at this company. A few days later I get a message asking me to apply on the company website.

    I apply on the company website. I get a message asking me to take this cognitive skills assessment and personality test.

    I do the thing. Incidentally this personality test is also just funny because it's twenty or so questions about what you would do if money was no object and your options are always along the lines of

    Like. It has to be a trick, right? You can't actually be trying to get someone to say they just want to redo office filing systems and enter in customer's payment information.

    Anyway then I get another email and this time it's their new hire questionnaire.

    I fill out the questionnaire. I finally get to a screening call with HR.

    During the call I ask HR about what the training is like and she says that for someone know they'd probably have me join their field technicians to learn the projects hands-on for a few weeks. I say great, I've done technician work and been on ladders and pulled wire and have no problem doing it again for training.

    Well that's still not good enough so I don't know what the hell those people wanted.

    Also, it's not worth a full-blown incident but I had an interview derail for reasons I did not expect. Interviewing with a small contractor and I bring up that, with my experience in the past of dealing with sales people, I usually request that I receive my instructions by email. Or to confirm them if we had a verbal or phone conversation. Human memory is fallible. We're all busy. I don't want things to be lost. I also want it to be clear who is responsible for what.

    Well that was apparently the bridge too far and my interviewer starts talking about how he needs people who can do things quickly and acting as though I'll just be refusing deadlines because someone didn't want it to write down what they wanted.

    I'm not elevating this to an incident, the guy was refreshingly honest and honorable about the whole thing. It was just a weird hangup that I haven't come across before.