RE: Job Hunting Stories

[Richard Lippincott <richard -dot- lippincott -at- ae -dot- ge -dot- com>]

My personal worst job hunting story goes back about a dozen years. I was
working for a large aerospace company, which was undergoing massive layoffs
due to the end of its big government contract.

I went to interview with a much smaller company in the Atlanta area. They'd
just gotten their first contract to sell their product to the U.S. military,
and they had no clue what the government requirements were.

First interview I got taken around the facility, and part of the interview
was with the company president. He sort of set the tone by informing me that
people from my company had a reputation for being "underworked and
overpaid." Hmmmm. The rest of the interview that day seemed to consist very
little of my skill sets or experience, and more on "Now what would you do in
the following situation?" The situations were all familiar, standard for
government contract situations. I answered as best I could, based on my
experience. They thanked me and sent me home.

A week or two later, I got called in for a second interview. Sat down with
most of the same people (but not the company prez), they tossed another
battery of questions. Kept taking notes on my answers. These weren't
generalizations, either. They'd show me some engineering data for specific
parts, and say "Now how would you meet the Mil-Spec requirements for the
change on this?" So I kept answering. Thought I did a good job. They said I
was one of their top two or three contenders, thanked me and sent me home.

A week or two later, I got another call. They wanted a third interview, it
seems they'd had a reorganization and the new manager wanted to start from
scratch. All candidates were being called back. Another interview. More
questions, this time branching out into a -different- area of "How would you
solve this? How would you setup something to meet the specs?" I answered as
best I could, but was growing a bit suspicious. Third interview, we've been
at this over a month, still no real data on when they'd be making a
decision, but I was assured I was considered quite promising.

And a week or two after that...yet -another- interview. Yep, more questions
about even -different- circumstances. Hey, I may be slow, but by now it was
obvious they were just dragging me in to mine for information. I doubted
that they had any intent to hire me, but they knew I had expert data in a
field that they suddenly badly needed.

Around this time, I got a job offer from another company, and accepted it. 

I couldn't resist, I fired off a letter to the president of the data miners,
saying in essence "I'm writing to help you out with your decision process,
I've accepted an offer from another company and should no longer be
considered a candidate for employment with your firm. Their entire decision
and offer process took less time than the four interviews I've done with
you. You told me that employees of my company appear to be 'underworked and
overpaid,' I suggest that's an illusion caused by the fact that when we do a
job we only have do to it once in order to get it right." 

Oddly, they didn't write back.

Rick Lippincott
Saugus, MA
Richard -dot- Lippincott -at- ae -dot- ge -dot- com

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Free copy of ARTS PDF Tools when you register for the PDF
Conference by May 15. Leading-Edge Practices for Enterprise
& Government, June 3-5, Bethesda,MD. www.PDFConference.com

Check out RoboDemo for tutorials! It makes creating full-motion software
demonstrations and other onscreen support materials easy and intuitive.
Need RoboHelp? Save $100 on RoboHelp Office in May with our mail-in rebate.
Go to http://www.ehelp.com/techwr-l
---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.