The interview was in the Renaissance Tower in Dallas taking place on one of the uppermost floors.  I could swear their elevators are Star Trek-like turbolifts, seeing as how the elevator moved dozens of floors in a matter of seconds.  I’d be anxious to see a diagram of how fast it actually moves, and probably wouldn’t want to ride again.  I was a little early (though the recruiter had told me to be there at 10 a.m. originally, the night before he sent me an email with directions and told me to be there at 9 which I received the morning of the interview and luckily had enough time to quickly get ready and depart) and waited in the lobby for HR to come retrieve me.

I was escorted to yet another upper floor and introduced to the interviewer, the man who would potentially someday become my direct manager.  He was incredibly nice and casual and the interview lasted for over an hour and a half.  He asked me a few technical questions to gauge my expertise and I actually managed to answer them all.  I remember one interview years ago where I was asked how to locate a network resource from a command prompt; the word “ping” eluded me and I stupidly stumbled around for a couple minutes trying to describe the simplest of network protocols.  Suffice it to say, I never heard back from that company and have since then been terrified of technical interviews.  After this recent interview however, I am much more confident about them.

As the technical aspect finished, we began casually chatting and the fact that I have an iPhone came up in the conversation.  His face lit up and he let me know that his entire team (him and 3 subordinates) all have iPhones, and that would make me the final piece of the puzzle.  I laughed and did backflips mentally – maybe this was my way in!  He did mention that he has no love for Apple products in general though, only the iPhone, so I kept my mouth shut on the fact that I own two Macs and no Windows machines.  :-)

It ended well and he told me not to expect to hear back for at least a week due to a number of other interviews he had to conduct.  I thanked him, left, and heard nothing for almost two weeks.  Then the recruiter called me and told me they wanted me in for a second interview.  Upon my arrival to that interview, the front desk receptionists told me that they don’t ever have anyone back if they don’t really like them, so this must mean good things for me.  For the second go around I met not only with my would-be direct manager, but his manager as well.  The meeting only lasted 30 minutes and was a little more intense and less casual.  They both asked me a few questions and admitted to being impressed with my answers.  I felt that everything went well, and left confident that I’d done my best.

I talked to my recruiter yesterday and he told me that the company has narrowed it down to me and one other candidate.  It’s the final lap of the race, and I’m pushing my neck out as far as it can possibly go without tripping before the finish line.  I want this job.  I need this job.  They’re supposed to be making a decision this week, which pretty much means they have until tomorrow to decide and inform the candidate of their choosing.  Supposedly.  This is all according to the information my recruiter has, so it may not be exactly accurate.

I’m going a little crazy.  I’ve been unemployed for almost five whole months now.  I’m tired of it.  I really hope I’m what this company wants because it sure sounds like the kind of place I could fit in.  Hopefully I’ll know tomorrow.

I have been without a job for almost four full months now.  That’s ridiculous.  I never thought it would take me this long to find something else after being laid off by Citi, but it has.  In all this time, I’ve had one interview and it was only by phone; I never heard back about scheduling one in person despite numerous attempts to follow-up.  Each week goes by with more applications going out, and no phone calls coming in.  For the first couple months I would go out almost every day to spend time with friends and relax just because I could.  Now I do so because I can’t stand the sight of the inside of my apartment.  On the days when I’m home, it’s practically torture to stare at the same walls all day, every day, with little time away.  The days just keep dragging on, and I find every excuse possible to stay busy so I don’t notice just how long I’ve really been unemployed.

I keep telling myself that I’m not useless.  I only do so because so many people around me have jumped all over me whenever I even hint that I’m feeling that way.  Since I was a junior in high school, I’ve only felt useful when working.  The few times I’ve been without work, it’s always been a very short time and I never had to put much thought into it.  Now I’m looking at how long I’ve gone without work.  Part of me wants to say it’s the way the economy is right now, and that there aren’t many jobs, but that’s just not the case in actuality.  There are jobs – I’ve seen them and applied for them – but none of them want me.  It’s a harsh truth, but there it is.

I have always been a night person, but more so lately than ever before.  It’s rare for me to be tired enough for bed before 2 a.m. and then I sleep in until around 11 each morning.  I usually wake up around 7 or 8 naturally, but I just don’t have anything to do to fill the time nowadays, so I just roll back over and sleep.  I send out resumes, I apply for jobs online, I pass out my business cards just about everywhere I go, but nothing comes of any of it.  I feel like I’m just moving from one day to the next, never really making progress.  I want a job.  I want to work.  I want to be useful again.

I got a call later in the afternoon from one of her coworkers asking me some more detailed questions about my current duties.  He was more interested in the kinds of applications I support, if I do anything with hardware which I answered in the affirmative.  He then quizzed me on a few more things, then touched on the fact that my resume doesn’t focus on my helpdesk roles, but more on the the other things I’ve done.  To which I thought, “why would ‘answers phones and responds to email’ belong on my resume?”  I focused on the more describable roles like writing training documentation, conducting training sessions, taking on support of new applications, etc.  He told me I need to revise it in order to appeal to this position, which I agreed to do.  I made the changes and emailed it back to him awaiting his response.

He called me shortly after and told me that it looked okay, but he was concerned about my school status.  My resume states that I’m currently pursuing a Master’s degree, and he didn’t care for that.  Apparently the position I’m being considered for requires a rotating schedule which is not flexible to be worked around school.  I told him that my schedule isn’t set yet, but that I’d only need one or two nights a week to be free for a few hours, but he still didn’t like that.  He then proceeded to tell me he’d increase the salary they were offering me by a few thousand dollars if I agreed to drop out of school.  Yup.  He told me that he’d pay me more if I’d stop going to school.  I said no.  He told me it decreased my chances of getting the position, but that he’d forward it on to the hiring manager anyways.

I got a call less than an hour later letting me know that the hiring manager really liked my resume and that my skills are exactly what they’re looking for, but that they won’t budge on the matter of me going to school.  He told me the manager has employees already working for her that want to go back to school but are forbidden from doing so because their schedules won’t allow it.  So if current employees get no wiggle room, neither would I as a new hire.  Either I drop out, or I don’t get the job.  I told them thanks but no thanks and that I wasn’t interested any longer.  Any job that would specifically tell me to drop out of school is not a job I want to take.  That’s ridiculous that a company would specifically want their employees to not go to school to better themselves.

So I’m bummed that my potential interview didn’t pan out, but even if it had the job wouldn’t have been worth taking.  Hopefully the rest of the potential job offers aren’t like this.  Then again, I’m just hoping that there are other job offers.