Thursday, October 28, 2010

Ups and Downs of Job Hunting

Today I got kicked to the curb. Twice. Both by large companies, both after 2 phone screens, in which I thought I did reasonably OK. I was excited by the possibility of working for the second company (rhymes with "MaceBook"), and thought I had done quite well on the 2nd interview. But just received a rejection notice from them, saying "we're keeping your resume on file". I have _no_idea_ what went wrong in that interview.

On the other hand, I had a great in-person interview with a company in Redmond. If they were in Bellevue, I'd be in love. Seriously. It was a great place, but it's practically across the Cascades! The work, and the people, seem really cool. One guy told me "he looked forward to working with me", which is a really nice thing to say. I'm definitely not ruling them out, but that is one long ass commute.

Tomorrow I have another interview for an 'Architect' position. I don't know if this means 'you must be able to code like a God the first time out', but I'm going to find out! Hopefully the fact that this one is in person means that it will go better for me. I always tend to do better in person.

I'm not so down with the whole phone screen thing. To me it seems like there are too many intangibles when you are talking to someone via phone -- I do much better when I can see the person and communicate with facial gestures.

Right now, the companies that have interviewed me face to face are all stoked. The ones that have interviewed me over the phone were not. I've got another phone interview with a MountainView CA company on Monday and Tuesday. These guys are serious studs. I'm not highly confident. But then again I have nothing to lose. So I'll give it a shot :)

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