Friday, February 04, 2005
Friday Night Interview Prep
I just spent my Friday night doing interview prep, and to be honest I kind of enjoyed it. I guess it's a good sign that I almost had fun prepping for the interview by doing the kind of work I'll be doing on the job. I had a lot of work to do that was applicable to all my interviews, and now that it's 70% taken care of, I'm going to start working on company specific preparation. My plan is to stay two days ahead in terms of researching the specific companies I'm speaking with, so that if things get bad during the week it won't kill me.
Tomorrow morning I've got a practice interview through the program put on by career services. I'm hopeful that my interviewer will have specific experience with my target industry, but we'll see. In any event, it will be my first practice interview ever, so I'm curious to see what they tell me about my interviewing habits. I've always thought of myself as a good interviewee once I get on a roll, and I've had a good success rate, historically. My bad interviews, on the other hand, are typically disasters. Two examples: I once interviewed for an internship with a large oil company where I let it slip that my last boss was Dutch, and weird, and that as a matter of fact all the Dutch people I had met were weird. That was the end of that job prospect. Another time I was interviewing with a technology company in Austin for a full-time job and I just couldn't seem to wake myself up. It was almost as if I was standing in the corner watching myself blather away in this interview when all of a sudden I stopped, turned to the interviewer, and said: "This is all coming out completely wrong."
Those are my best interview stories, and speaking of good disaster interviews, I'm holding a contest for my section for worst Hell Week story. I've got some good prizes lined up for the winners, I can't wait to see what kind of great anecdotes people have after a solid week of interviewing.
Tomorrow morning I've got a practice interview through the program put on by career services. I'm hopeful that my interviewer will have specific experience with my target industry, but we'll see. In any event, it will be my first practice interview ever, so I'm curious to see what they tell me about my interviewing habits. I've always thought of myself as a good interviewee once I get on a roll, and I've had a good success rate, historically. My bad interviews, on the other hand, are typically disasters. Two examples: I once interviewed for an internship with a large oil company where I let it slip that my last boss was Dutch, and weird, and that as a matter of fact all the Dutch people I had met were weird. That was the end of that job prospect. Another time I was interviewing with a technology company in Austin for a full-time job and I just couldn't seem to wake myself up. It was almost as if I was standing in the corner watching myself blather away in this interview when all of a sudden I stopped, turned to the interviewer, and said: "This is all coming out completely wrong."
Those are my best interview stories, and speaking of good disaster interviews, I'm holding a contest for my section for worst Hell Week story. I've got some good prizes lined up for the winners, I can't wait to see what kind of great anecdotes people have after a solid week of interviewing.
