As a lot of you know, I’ve spent the last few weeks apply­ing for a new job out­side of the pub­lic sec­tor. One that would have me man­ag­ing con­tent on one web­site, rather than the six I cur­rently manage.

What I’ve had to go through can only be described as one of the most drawn out expe­ri­ences I’ve ever gone though, and I’ve been putting up with the gov­ern­ment for six years.

I ini­tially found the job through SEEK and had called the adver­tis­ing agency to ask a few ques­tions. They asked that I come in for a more in depth inter­view. After that, the inter­viewer (a HR rep) had expressed some hes­i­tance at my suit­abil­ity to the role. Explain­ing that while I may have the cre­ative side won, I might not have the strate­gic side they were look­ing for. I coun­tered with the notion that I could quick eas­ily fill any gaps in my skill­base and that it wasn’t an issue. A few days later the HR rep, sport­ing a much more cheery atti­tude, called back to let me know I’d got through to the next level: an inter­view with the com­pany itself.

My spir­its bol­stered, I headed down to Myer and grabbed a new shirt and tie to impress my poten­tial employ­ers. Yes, that’s right. For the first time in about three years I wore a tie. Scary, scary stuff I know.

Now, want­ing to fur­ther impress these peo­ple, and on advise of the HR rep, I reviewed the entire web­site, wrote up two pages of com­ments and changes and even ran a stan­dards com­pli­ance check over the site and col­lated that in a folder.

The actual meet­ing itself was more like an hour long infor­mal chat with the girl who would be my super­vi­sor. I learned a lot about what would be required from me and impressed upon the inter­viewer the skill and knowl­edge I could bring to the role. She was impressed with my Folder of Ideas, and sug­gested that if I was to get through to the next round I should bring it back with me. We really hit it off in the pro­fes­sional sense and I was start­ing to have high hopes about the job. At the end of the inter­view she let me know that they’d be get­ting back to me the next day, so I was pleas­antly sur­prised to get a call from the HR rep that very day say­ing that they wanted me back for round three.

As things were begin­ning to heat up it was time to step things up and grab yet another shirt and tie. So off I went to Myer to grab another shirt/tie combo. Well the next big day rolled around and I got the cus­tom­ary visit from the Nerve Fairy in the hour lead­ing up to go time. Then the HR Rep called to ask if I minded push­ing the inter­view back a day. The boss of the area had wanted to meet me at this third inter­view and couldn’t make it. Of course I said it was fine to resched­ule. How could I not? It’s around this time that I begin to get the signs of an impend­ing head cold. I’m run­ning on cof­fee and Codral from this point.

Fast for­ward to the next day and I’m in the same gear as I was for the sec­ond inter­view. There was no way I’d wear the same shirt as the day before. Only because I didn’t really want to have to deal with my cur­rent cowork­ers. They were already tak­ing great delight in the fact I was suited up. Sure enough I receive another call from the HR Rep, ask­ing if the inter­view can be put back an hour. I’m fine with that. What’s an hour between prospec­tive work­mates anyway?

I arrive at the place and am intro­duced to the boss lady. She seems nice enough, although she explains that she can’t stay in the inter­view very long due to other more press­ing mat­ters that needed attend­ing to. The inter­view is a lot more for­mal this time around. I’m asked a lot of high level ques­tions, I assume to test my abil­ity to think lat­er­ally and what­not. Once again I get along rea­son­ably well with this boss lady. Spir­its are soar­ing. After she leaves I have another infor­mal chat with the super­vi­sor that goes well. At the end I’m told they’ll get back to me the next day. The next day (a Fri­day) rolls around and no phone call. Think­ing they may still be think­ing it over I resolve to call them on the Mon­day. That morn­ing I gave the HR rep a call and left a mes­sage on her voice­mail. I hear noth­ing back until yes­ter­day morn­ing. And it’s not the news I want: I didn’t get the job.

So what went wrong?
While I was a hit with the super­vi­sor and got noth­ing but green lights across the board, the boss lady was con­cerned I didn’t have the skills needed for the role. She came to this con­clu­sion after 30 min­utes of inter­rupted con­ver­sa­tion. Not that I’m bit­ter of course.

The head cold I’d been bat­tling for a cou­ple of weeks finally got the upper hand and ren­dered me bed rid­den for a goodly por­tion of today. Once I’m back on my feet I’m charg­ing right back into the job search arena. There’s a job out there for me. I know it.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 13th, 2006 at 6:02 pm and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.