Tuesday, August 2, 2011

My thoughts on job interviews

I started looking for a new job about 4 weeks ago. The company I work for was bought out by another company and all the management is changing, so I figured I should look at least. Sent out 10 resumes so far and been on four interviews now. Being somewhat selective since I'm employed.

Some places really have the whole process a lot more together than others. I like phone interviews as a starter, since if the job really isn't something I'm looking for it's saved me a trip in and putting on a suit. It lets you find out what the jobs about without a huge waste of everyone involved's time.

One thing that's absolutely annoying is when you meet the written qualifications to a T, then get into the interview and they're like, how much experience do you have with blah, since we're looking for that too. It would have been awesome to mention that in the posting, then neither of us would have just wasted 2 hours dude.

Getting all the interviews done at once is nice. Do I really need to come in twice (or more)? My time is important too.

Lastly, places that don't list a salary range are annoying, especially when you don't have a phone interview to find that out. So you go on in and they say, hey, we're looking for a guy to run our entire IT shop solo, top to bottom, including writing doco and SLAs, negotiating with vendors, etc, and you think, ok, I'm gonna be a slave to my phone so this better pay out solid. Then you ask about salary range and they go, hey, we're somewhere in the range of a counter guy at a Wendys, ballpark. Yeah, good luck with that guys.

8 comments:

  1. You can tell a lot about a place by the way they interview prospective hires. Definitely something to watch out for as you are out doing interviews.

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  2. Sounds like you've had some bad interview experiences. We've all been there, best of luck to you!

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  3. good to be doing interviews when you already work. totally changes your attitude!

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  4. Yea I hate some of the stuff you have to have to qualify for jobs. Some companies are even going so far as to disregard applications from people who aren't currently employed.

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  5. Yeah I completely agree, but some jobs/positions it really does not matter.

    I was hired for my new job (dish-washing) right away. When I submitted my resume in person that was the interview, and I was basically hired once it ended. Started three days later.

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  6. I actually just recently scored a job at olive garden and marveled at the extensive application process. I was interviewed 6 times!! :O

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  7. I can't stand job interviews. I understand if they want to make sure I'm clean cut, but that doesn't need to be until they like me.

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  8. @Thingsyouwant Yeah I said SOME, learn to read, I know it's not applicable to ALL.

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