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9.07.2013

Interviews and Agencies

First, I have to apologize for the period between posts.  I'd like to say that I was doing something exciting or at least time consuming, but I was not.  So what have I been doing? Well I had two interviews with two different companies, my sister and her family came to Wisconsin over Memorial Day weekend and I have been filling out job applications like it is my job.

In the two and a half weeks since my last post I have had two interviews, one with Lucky 13 Consulting and the other with Extensions Inc.  

If anyone is interested in these two companies, I am posting their websites below the post segments about them.

Lucky 13 is a marketing firm that seems, from what I understand, to specialize with the door-to-door sales approach.  They get hired by a company to find and bring in new clients to their businesses.  I was excited because it was a job interview, even though the career field is not particularly one I want to be in.  So of course I couldn't go in shorts and a t shirt so I had to go buy new clothes for the interviews, but I'll get into that more in the next post.  Anyway, I went into the interview prepared, confident, and ready.  But the interview did not go the way I thought it would.  In my head, interviews are supposed to be an information gathering technique.  Questions like "What makes you think you can do this job?" or "What are you looking for in a Career?" hell even a "What do you want to do?" would have been nice.  I know the questions that they are going to ask, "What are your strengths/weaknesses?", "What did you study in College?” blah blah blah.  If you wanted to make sure my resume is in correct that's fine.  I must say that the Manager/President of Lucky 13 started off the bat that the first stage of the interview process was only to connect a face to the resume but I felt as if he was just listing off a bunch of questions and taking the first 5 words out of my mouth and reacting to just that.   As rude as I found that, the worst part was when he noticed what I studied in college.  Now to put some background on this, when you look through the company's website they show a video of the guy I interviewed with saying, 'it doesn't matter what you studied in college, we don't look at majors' or something to that effect. Yet, when he got to my education, he said, "Studied English at Lawrence University...interesting," and nothing else.  Not a "What do you think being an English Major does for you in this field?” which is something I would have asked if the roles were reversed.  Now English majors are very versatile people.  We analyze and interpret all the time, anyone can spout off numbers and figures, but when you're trying to sell something, people want bullet points: This is why X is better than Y; the bottom line is this...  But when you scoff at you're preconceived notions of what a major does or can do, I think you really miss out on good people.  All in all, the interview took 10 minutes and I did not get a call back from them.
Now my interview with extensions Inc., fit much better with my idea of how interviews were to be conducted.  They were pleasant, explained their process in more than one sentence and asked more of the questions I was expecting. Granted Extensions is not a place where I will work, not unless I get an HR degree.  Extensions is a job agency specializing in south eastern Wisconsin, in very specific job markets.  I was very excited when I got this interview because it is something that Valerie told me that I was going to need to do; using an agency isn't a one stop shop but is definitely going to be a great second source to find me a job. They made this very clear, don't stop looking. 
I am not the perfect candidate for every job, and I know it.  But I know I could be good at a lot of jobs, I know I could.  

As always tell me what you think, if you or an employer want to hire me that would be great too.  I do ask that you share this with your friends and family members who are getting ready to look for a job.  Thanks for reading everybody.




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