Saturday, March 15, 2008

Bagel Jobby

On Tuesday I had a job interview. But first I had a bagel. Like my last visit, I went to The Bagel Factory. And, also like the last time around, I had a toasted everything bagel with lox spread. It was delicious.

Now I'm going to take a moment to talk about the job interview:
The position was that of an 'email writer' for a company that makes supplementary educational videos for kids ages 8-14. I would respond to questions like 'what is the difference between patriotism and nationalism' or 'what is the difference between limpids and carbohydrates' or 'what are the orgins of agriculture'. I would respond to these questions using the voice and style of the animated characters in the company's movies. When I got there I was taken to a conference room where I was told to 'tell me about yourself'. I did a spiel about my educational background in writing, my experience teaching college student, my feeling that this job would be challenging and fun etc. Then I was not asked any follow up questions. Instead I asked a few questions. Then I was given a writing test...where I had to pick one of the above questions, research it and write a response in 20 minutes. I chose the origins of agriculture. I did not finish answering it. I didn't finish because I still didn't know how in depth an answer was required and 20 minutes is a short time to figure something out. Afterwards we sat back in the conference room and the woman interviewing me said the following:

"I'll be honest with you, this is a very tedious job." "The position has been open for two months." "There's a quick turn around of people".

I countered with:
"I think that the variety of questions and subject matter will keep me engaged." and "How long have you been working here?"

So I left a little confused. The woman had told me not to worry if I hadn't completed answering the question but she had also told me that the job was tedious and didn't keep people long. Did I want this job? I didn't know.

Yesterday I got an email from them saying that they had hired someone else. This is a bit of a bummer but also a bit of a relief. I want to be employed. I want to get on with my life. And if I had been hired, I would have packed up all my stuff rented out a room as quickly as possible and worked there. But the fact that the woman interviewing me wasn't trying to sell the job and didn't seem that interested in me selling myself...well.

So that's that.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are two positives from that situation:

a) it's good to get practice with real interviews

2) they didn't stretch out the process and keep you dangling, in a state of unknowing

d) You don't have to write emails to people with child brains all day long. I did that (they weren't children) and it wasn't that sweet.

- T

Anonymous said...

So, the hire decision had been made before your interview, thus you didn't have the interview with the "real" interviewer, and the young woman charged with the task
probably thought it a waste of her time to conduct one with you, thus the lack of interest, and in retrospect, perhaps kindness in painting the job as one you seem lucky not to have gotten!
mc