Thursday, January 13, 2005
Screwing the pooch
I had an interview yesterday set up by a recruiter. He usually does a lot of prep work-gives me the address with map, names of the people I'll be seeing, company website, yada, yada, yada ...
I get to the address and I can't find the company name in the building directory. A lot of buildings in the GTA have touch screen directories now. The security guard wasn't around either if there was one. I ask a few people in the lobby, but no one's heard of the company.
A postie suggests I try this office with initials that resemble what I'm looking. It's not the company, but they let me use their phone (I don't have a cell) and offer to surf the web for me. I can't reach my recruiter and his receptionist doesn't have any way of contacting him. We look at the company website and it has a different address. I go charging out into the rain to find this place. No luck there either, east or west side, and no payphones.
After running around in the rain for what feels like eternity, I find a payphone and the other receptionist finds my recruiter. He gives me a floor reference back at the first place. I go there and it's not the right company name on the door, but I go in anyway and ask for the contact. Finally, I'm in the right place only an hour late.
They start the interview off with the job description. They're looking for someone to build their WAS 6 environment on Windows 2003. I thought the interview should have been over right there, but I soldier on. I've only done WAS 4 on AIX. They're asking me about uncrating and configuring servers. I'm no sysadmin. We were done in about 25 minutes. I spent an hour and a half in transit for this plus the walking tour of downtown.
I'm a good person. Why do these bad interviews keep happening to me? I appreciate my recruiter since he is getting me interviews. I just don't understand what exactly he gets paid for and how he gets anyone a job.
D.
I get to the address and I can't find the company name in the building directory. A lot of buildings in the GTA have touch screen directories now. The security guard wasn't around either if there was one. I ask a few people in the lobby, but no one's heard of the company.
A postie suggests I try this office with initials that resemble what I'm looking. It's not the company, but they let me use their phone (I don't have a cell) and offer to surf the web for me. I can't reach my recruiter and his receptionist doesn't have any way of contacting him. We look at the company website and it has a different address. I go charging out into the rain to find this place. No luck there either, east or west side, and no payphones.
After running around in the rain for what feels like eternity, I find a payphone and the other receptionist finds my recruiter. He gives me a floor reference back at the first place. I go there and it's not the right company name on the door, but I go in anyway and ask for the contact. Finally, I'm in the right place only an hour late.
They start the interview off with the job description. They're looking for someone to build their WAS 6 environment on Windows 2003. I thought the interview should have been over right there, but I soldier on. I've only done WAS 4 on AIX. They're asking me about uncrating and configuring servers. I'm no sysadmin. We were done in about 25 minutes. I spent an hour and a half in transit for this plus the walking tour of downtown.
I'm a good person. Why do these bad interviews keep happening to me? I appreciate my recruiter since he is getting me interviews. I just don't understand what exactly he gets paid for and how he gets anyone a job.
D.
