Chapter 7, Part 2 – Interviews, or, You Don’t Need Anyone, Do You
Interview Tip #4: Do establish a salary range:
You: I’m looking for a salary in the range of $45,000 to $50,000.
Interviewer: But this is a clerical job.
You: Yeah, and I’m the best damned clerical in the business.
Three job interviews in six months' time; no offers. My next interview, two months later, was for a marketing coordinator position with an engineering consulting firm. Because it took place in the summer, I had to add a little something extra to my interview preparation, which I’ll call Phase 4.1, dressing for excess.
There are two seasons in New York, which are best characterized as ass-freezing and boiling hot. In the winter, which runs roughly from late October through mid-March, one needs to dress in layers to face the biting wind and bitter cold. In so doing, otherwise stylish women appear to have taken fashion advice from The Michelin Man. In summer, where the humidity is off the charts, you need to wear the least amount of clothing possible, while avoiding a charge of indecent exposure. If I put on a suit and stockings in summer, by the time I hit the subway platform, two levels below the street and one above Hell, my carefully made-up countenance instantly resembles that of the character in the Indiana Jones movie; the one whose face melted off when he touched the Holy Grail. So I went with Plan B.
As my interview fell on a day when the heat was utterly unbearable at 8:00 AM, I decided to be smart about dressing. Instead of donning my interview suit, I put on a sleeveless dress and sandals, and eighty-sixed my panty hose. I carried my interview outfit in an overnight bag, and when I arrived at the office, a half-hour before my interview, I asked the receptionist if I could use the ladies room. I changed into my outfit there. A bit unusual, I admit, but I’d been on too many interviews where the perfect look I was going for was ruined as soon as I locked my door. If I was worried that the receptionist might have been scandalized by such behavior, my fears were allayed when I came back out. She barely glanced up at me. If I was going to perspire at all, better it should be due to the interview taking a bad turn, and not because the streets of New York aren’t air-conditioned.
It turned out that I had a delightful meeting with my interviewer, a woman with whom I was very impressed. Not only was she an engineer and a senior partner in the firm, but also she was a writer. Most of the technical professionals who I had met over the years were not all that skillful in word manipulation. There seemed to be two disparate skill sets at play, both of which this woman appeared to have mastered.
I showed her my work samples and she showed me excerpts from her firm’s proposals, qualification statements, and brochures. She let it slip that, among the applicants, there were three who presently were working at rival firms. Though they probably stood a better chance than I did of winning this job, I felt confident that I had made a good showing.
I therefore was very pleased to be called back for a second interview. This time, I would be speaking to the marketing manager; the person to whom the position would report directly. The first woman I spoke to was her boss, and the only reason that I saw her first was that the marketing manager was on vacation when the initial interview was conducted.
I was not as impressed with her as I was with her boss. She was very retiring and spoke in such a tiny voice that it was difficult for me to hear her. She didn’t really seem to have much input in the hiring process, and deferred to her boss and her boss’s boss. She told me that the latter, who was the Vice President of Marketing, would be the one who made the final decision.
She gave me a writing assignment to complete while I was there. I was to prepare a résumé for a hypothetical engineer. It was easy and I believe that I did well.
You can bet that I was elated when I was called back for a third interview. The field was narrowing. I waited nearly an hour for the marketing VP to complete another interview. To pass the time, I perused an exhibit in the waiting area. It was a graphic display prepared in response to a Request for Proposal and concerned a project to beautify a neglected area of the city. It immediately struck me that this had absolutely nothing to do with the core business of the firm. They were involved with water- and waste management. I made a mental note to ask the VP about this.
When we finally sat down together, he was interested to know how well I would work with busy engineers who had precious little time to devote to writers. I told him that I had worked with hardware and software engineers in the past, who also were too busy to be bothered. I mentioned that this was in a job very early in my career, which did not appear on my résumé. I explained that I was tenacious in following up with technical personnel and that I often had to remind them that we had to work together if we had any hope of bringing new business into the company. He seemed satisfied with my answer and went on to ask a few related questions.
When it came to my turn, I uttered some remarks that made it clear that I understood the firm’s business from my reading of the annual report and the website. I then brought up the project displayed in Reception and I asked him about its relevance to the organization’s mission. He told me that it was a project about which the region’s engineers were very proud and which they had undertaken to submit on their own time. I agreed that it was very altruistic, but I wondered if it might confuse potential clients, who might expect to see, at their first point of contact in the reception area, a project that was more closely allied with the firm’s core business, water- and waste management.
I actually think that I insulted him. He mentioned, rather defensively, that such projects were displayed throughout the halls of the office, which I had noticed on my prior visits. Any one of those projects would have been a better fit in the reception area, as they had more to do with the company’s actual business. But I didn’t say that.
At the end of the interview, I asked him about the next step. He said that I was the last to be interviewed and that a decision would be made the following week. I asked if I would hear something either way, and he said yes.
Ten days passed. I decided to call the marketing manager. She told me that a decision had not been made. She didn’t offer anything further and I asked if I would be advised in any event. She said yes and rang off.
Nobody called. No one e-mailed, or faxed, or sent me a letter. Three interviews; three suits; three round-trip train fares; three lunches. And hours and hours of Phases I-IV. And they didn’t even have the decency to let me know that they had hired someone else. Even after I sent each of the three a thank-you letter after each interview.
What did me in this time? Was it my questioning of the VP about the lobby display? Was it that I mentioned a job that wasn’t on my résumé? If only he would have asked, I gladly would have explained that I had been advised to go back 15 years on my résumé and no further, but that all of my jobs appeared on my application. Did they finally decide to go with someone from one of the rival firms, who had more direct experience? As with all my other interviews, I’ll never know.
It’s very frustrating, when you’re forced to divulge all kinds of personal information to strangers, not to be treated with respect and candor. But, on the bright side, at least now I don’t have to know how solid waste is managed.
*
Now that I’ve had some time to reflect, I can only say that the business of looking for work is, at best, an imperfect process. In spite of all my preparation, I made a series of mistakes and missteps. As for the employers, they often acted cavalierly and insensitively. How do I make it better for the next time?
Well, for one thing, I’ve decided to put every single job back on my résumé. It was bad advice to eliminate the early positions, in the hope that I could shave a few years off of my age.
For another, I will be extra-special careful in regard to what questions I ask. I need to be more sensitive to hot-button issues.
My biggest worry is that I may never land a job again that includes a lunch hour, a 401K, health benefits, and an employee ID. The longer that I am out of work, the harder it is to find new work and the less attractive I am to employers. That is why I sat down to write this book.
God, I hope it sells 8,999,999 copies.
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