So I haven't taken too many occasions to write on personal matters, and I don't plan to start now, but there is this one bit I just had to share. I am preparing to finish my doctorate in the next few months, and have thus begun the job search. I'd been hearing from many people that it was a bit early; seems most employers want people right away. But a few weeks ago, my advisor talked me up to a contact of his out in California. I emailed this guy my resume and cover letter and he asked to set up a phone interview. Not having done this before, I prepared quite a bit for this phone interview--I read up on the company, prepared lots of questions to ask and lots of semi-scripted answers to questions I thought he'd ask me. So he calls at the appointed hour, tell me a bit about the company and what they are looking for, asks if I'm interested, I say yes and that in fact, I've been doing a lot of the stuff they have in mind. He says great, and offers to fly me out for a more formal interview and to give seminar. This call couldn't have lasted five minutes.

So I prepared a seminar, bought my first suit and flew out there last week. I couldn't have asked for it to go any better. Great area, great company, great people, great work. Just great all around And they seemed pleased with me as well and said they'd get back to me later next week (i.e. this past week). As soon as I got back into town, I sent off a thank you letter and all I could think about was how cool it would be to get this job. After a while though I got a little concerned that I might be setting myself up for disappointment by wanting it so bad, so I started to tell myself they weren't going to hire me. That they wanted someone with more experience. Nevertheless, it was killing me not knowing either way all week. At the same time I was getting sick (probably from all that air travel on crowded planes). Anyway, I would've stayed home Friday and rested, except that I figured that would be the day that I'd here from this company. I don't think I've had a less productive day in years. I think I just sat around all day biding my time waiting for the call--much as I had been doing the rest of the week. Finally, at about six o'clock I was ready to give up and head home to wallow in self-pity and Ben & Jerry's for the weekend when I got an email for the company. Things have been hectic for them this week, otherwise they'd have called--and sooner--but the gist of it was that yes, they want to hire me and they will get an official offer to me early next week. Oh, what a humungous relief.

Anyway, I know it's only my first interview and I need to wait and see what they are prepared to offer. But I was so impressed with everything about this place, that as long as it's a decent offer, I'm going. It'll be so nice to have the job search out of the way and be able to focus on finishing. It's hard for me to even imagine being done with school in just a few months.

Anyway, that's enough of that. I'll get back to ranting as soon as possible.

Posted by Hey Paul   |   Saturday, March 26, 2005