The Job Hunt Continues
I couldn’t have hoped for a better response to all of the portfolios I’ve been casting out into the world. It might just be the current job climate or a different market this time around, but apparently I’m hot stuff. I sent out about a dozen cover letters with portfolios two weeks ago and landed three interviews within a week.
I took a day off and managed two of those interviews last Friday. The first didn’t go so badly, except for the fact that I interviewed with two people and neither of them were the person with whom I was scheduled to interview. Hopefully they won’t require another visit before they make me an offer. Still, I’ll probably make the drive all over again if they ask; it’s a decent work environment and a good community to settle down and raise my son.
The second interview was horrible. My wife and I drove four extra hours and arrived with plenty of time to spare. After filling out some paperwork and waiting about an hour, the woman’s assistant finally got around to telling me that she’d had a “family emergency.” I wasn’t too mad; after all, it might be a perfectly valid excuse. So I gave her the benefit of the doubt and we made the long trip home.
After arriving, we discovered that, despite her assistant’s assurances that she had been leaving messages since noon, our answering machine was completely blank. At this point, I decided to wash my hands of the whole mess. I won’t be rescheduling an interview with them if they see fit to lie to my face. I composed a terse email to that effect and don’t expect to hear back from them.
My next interview isn’t until tomorrow, and I’m already excited about it. Not only is it in the same city as my wife’s aunt, it’s about an hour and a half away from my brother. Moving there would be great, especially with the holidays coming up. That’s not to mention the job itself, which is at a research firm. It’s a bit of a deviation from what I’m used to, but it sounds like fun nonetheless.
Whatever happens will all depend on what kind of offers I get back from everyone. I’m still sending out my portfolios, even though I’m hopeful to get the jobs for which I’ve been interviewing. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s to never stop applying when you’re on the job hunt. I made that mistake last time and wasted weeks waiting for responses from interviewers. Still, with such a booming response, I don’t expect the search to take very long. Heck, if things keep going at this rate, I’ll have a new job by next month. Needless to say, my wife and I are both crossing our fingers.