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The new job campaign continues

Day 33. I met up with SpillTheBeans for lunch. His suggestion was sushi - and I had made it very clear to him that we were going wherever he suggested. He had a nice (slightly expensive) sushi restaurant near him that he'd obviously wanted to try for a while. I was delighted to oblige him. After all, I wanted him to be grateful for the meal, and I figured moving slightly up market would just make him slightly more grateful. He preferred beer to saki, but whatever the form of alchohol was fine with me. I wanted him relaxed, replete, cheerful and satisfied. And he didn't disappoint me.

We chatted all about his workplace. The same workplace I was preparing myself to join. I was impressed with everything he said (okay, I appeared impressed with everything he said - come on, I've been on my share of dates, I know how to do this). He was delighted to tell me all about the project, details that I was surprised he was willing to tell me - after all, there are some things you probably shouldn't tell relative strangers. By the end I was telling him how interesting his workplace sounded and "maybe I should see if there are any openings" and he was saying "yes, you should, you'd do great" ... When he saw me again working for the same company, in the same project, I wanted to make sure he didn't think "strange coincidence", but rather "oh, he took my advice, I must say hello".

Day 42. So the interview with HR was unbelievably funny. They must've trawled the same websites that I do because I had seen every single question they gave me. And I had answers - prepared answers - for every single one of those questions. Good answers. I found it difficult keeping a straight face towards the end when HRLady was so obviously impressed. She actually said to me at the end "I must say Mr. The Hutt," (or words to that effect), "You certainly seem to have adequately handled an impressive range of experiences". Hmm, the words as I write them just don't do that justice. Suffice it to says that she came across as in effect saying "wow, I do hope we take you on". On my way home, it felt like after one of those exams where you were so perfectly prepared that you could actually predict to within a percent what you had scored - unfortunately those were all too rare in my youth, but clearly I have developed since then.

Day 44. So now the technical interview. The team leader and one of his guys were interviewing me. As they started, I took command. It was the usual "tell us about your last role" entry point. I was hoping they would start there - I was prepared for a number of different interview scenarios, but that was my ideal. Because I started by telling them how we had fixed this problem, one that was eerily similar to one they were having right now. And they were practically jumping at me to give them more and more detail. Then I expanded with another issue that we had resolved "at my current job" - surprisingly similar to an issue they were having. I had actually prepared several of these to talk about, but they were jumping down my throat in eagerness on just these, and it seems that the hour passed before they even had time to cover the items on their list, not even managing to cover some little test class they were intending walk through.

"When will I hear about whether or not you will be making me an offer?" I asked as we were rounding up and I was getting my bag. "How soon can you start?" was the reply. Yes, JobShark was right. There is no need to apply for jobs. You can place yourself where you want. Don't tell anyone else though, it could actually turn into an application if everyone did it this way.

Javva The Hutt.

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