Thursday, April 21, 2005
Up and down and hopefully up again
I had high hopes for my second interview at WSIB. The TTC strike didn't materialize after all. It seemed to go OK at the time although I had a hard time understanding the one interviewer because of his accent. Afterwards, I went for coffee with a former colleague in the basement food court. We saw a couple of other people who had worked at CLA down there.
The turndown was in my email before I got home. I guess this is one benefit to going through an agency, but I was devastated at the time. My former colleague put a good spin on it for me, that there wasn't a fit. I wonder if they didn't believe my answers about the old CLA environment, e.g. we couldn't set standards because of the politics with the application development areas. I know I didn't definitely know one answer I should have known so I've gone back to study the manuals.
The next day, I got two calls. One was about an emergency tutoring assignment which I accepted. I guess I was vulnerable because this was a big mistake. I couldn't help the student, and he cancelled the next session. This totally stressed me out. I am now trying to break the contract, but there will be a penalty.
The second call was from a recruiter about a job at HP that I applied for in November! Because of the tutoring sessions, I had to delay the interview to this week. The hiring manager had a very big smile when he first saw me. Once the interview started, I found out that the job was not the one I applied for, and the technical interviewer was not available. I should have asked to reschedule. In any case, the hiring manager was a really nice guy (probably about twenty years my junior), and the interview was a very pleasant chat. I don't think I'm a real good fit for the one job (more like solution design), but I wouldn't mind the other (middleware operations) even if it is shiftwork. He's recruiting for both and he told me that MQ is coming to his group, too.
D.
The turndown was in my email before I got home. I guess this is one benefit to going through an agency, but I was devastated at the time. My former colleague put a good spin on it for me, that there wasn't a fit. I wonder if they didn't believe my answers about the old CLA environment, e.g. we couldn't set standards because of the politics with the application development areas. I know I didn't definitely know one answer I should have known so I've gone back to study the manuals.
The next day, I got two calls. One was about an emergency tutoring assignment which I accepted. I guess I was vulnerable because this was a big mistake. I couldn't help the student, and he cancelled the next session. This totally stressed me out. I am now trying to break the contract, but there will be a penalty.
The second call was from a recruiter about a job at HP that I applied for in November! Because of the tutoring sessions, I had to delay the interview to this week. The hiring manager had a very big smile when he first saw me. Once the interview started, I found out that the job was not the one I applied for, and the technical interviewer was not available. I should have asked to reschedule. In any case, the hiring manager was a really nice guy (probably about twenty years my junior), and the interview was a very pleasant chat. I don't think I'm a real good fit for the one job (more like solution design), but I wouldn't mind the other (middleware operations) even if it is shiftwork. He's recruiting for both and he told me that MQ is coming to his group, too.
D.
