dianaschnuth

It’s true: after being unemployed for almost six weeks, I have accepted a job offer!

I’ll be working in downtown Toledo, on the 12th floor of a corporate office building across from Promenade Park. I will also be making more than twice what I made in my previous job: an increase in salary of 114%, to be exact. Aaron and I will be on equal financial footing — actually, I’ll be making just a little more than he makes, to tell the truth.

The main thing, though, is that I’ll be working in the Information Services department, in Data Warehousing. The change of industry has to be the biggest benefit of this entire severance situation.

My start date is one week from today, at which time I get to report to Orientation at 8:30am. On Aaron’s birthday. Which he requested off from work. But it’s all good, since we’ll get to go to dinner together on his birthday. Yay!

So, when’s a good time for the Diana Got A Job Party that I promised you all…? I’m thinking Saturday the 17th, evening? Who’s in?

You know, I’m not entirely sure how that went.

I spoke briefly with my potential supervisor’s supervisor, and that seemed to go well. More of the same: Tell me about the Access tracking database, etc. Then I met with two senior team members, who asked me more technical questions: How many tables were in your database? How many columns in the main table? What kinds of reports did you create?

Then I got the SQL test.

First question: Write pseudocode to generate the first 10 numbers of the Fibonacci sequence: (0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34)

Took me a second to remember / deduce what the Fibonacci sequence was (add the two previous numbers to get the next number). Then I was all, OK, do while loop / for next loop, something like that. Counter variable going up to 10, sure. But I never figured out how to set variables for the previous two numbers, or to do the calculation mathematically. So, they got part of my logic behind it, but not a correct answer.

After that were a couple of query questions that should have been easy, but weren’t. After those were a bunch of definition questions, some of which I farted my way through (“What is normalization and when would you go for it?”) and some of which I skipped (“What is a transaction?”). All in all, I answered probably half the questions on the quiz, and got some of those mostly correct. Some of them I knew how to answer in the context of Access, but not SQL (“How do you define a one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many relationship between tables?”).

After the test, my potential supe came in and told me that the test is mainly to see where I stand programming-wise and what my problem-solving thought process is like. He stressed that in entry-level positions, they don’t have much to look at with regards to a body of work, so the test serves to give them an idea of where each applicant stands.

The Powers That Be will be convening by week’s end to decide who gets the job. I’ll keep you all updated.

P.S. – I wore my traditional Halloween dangly bat earrings to the interview. No one noticed. At least Jess noticed when I wore them to Eric and Jess’s reception on Saturday. 🙂

Today’s interview — number two since the job hunt began in April — was for a large health care company whose corporate offices are located in downtown Toledo. (Let’s skip the company name and keep Google out of this, yes?) The position in question is in Data Warehousing, which deals with getting data into the warehouse and spitting that data back out in the form of reports.

I arrived a little early, located the building (again — I interviewed here a few years back), and went across the street to spend ten minutes at Promenade Park. Beautiful day, gentle breeze, very calming.

(By the way? On my way up into the parking garage before this, I saw a vanity license plate that made me laugh out loud: PWN3D. I *so* wished I would have had my camera on me.)

Once I went into the building, I was taken upstairs by an HR representative to fill out some standard paperwork: OKs for background checks, stuff like that. Then I was taken upstairs for my interview.

Things that went right:

• My new interview pantsuit is *killer*. I looked perfectly professional (IMO), and didn’t feel fussy about my clothes or awkward about my bearing.
• I successfully portrayed my ability to learn on the fly, to keep myself busy and productive, and to try to better myself and my department. A lot of this had to do with my resume, though.
• I had plenty of relevant questions to ask.

Things that I could have done better:

• Interview questions for which I was not prepared: “Why do you want to work for our company?” and “What did you like the least about your previous jobs?”
• OMG I forgot to bring my references! Sheesh. The last time I used my fancy black folder was when I went to the job fair, so it was full to the brim of unstapled two-page resumes. It should have been full of the job description printout, a resume, and my references. No worries, though; I asked the HR rep if I could e-mail them to her later, and she in turn gave me not only her card, but an entire folder with info on benefits.

Overall, the interviewer (my potential supervisor) said he sees potential in me, and that appears to be my strongest quality. I honestly don’t know much about their software, but I know I can learn, and I can bring my design and layout experience to the table when it comes to actual reports.

There would be some awesome benefits to working here. The office has a fantastic view of Promenade Park, right on the river, and three of the building’s five elevators face the river. There would be no worries about having a place to walk during my lunches, either. As for more company-related bennies, I’d be eligible for software training, including Microsoft. They also seem to have a pretty decent health plan, so Aaron and I would need to compare policies and see whether I should spend the money on my own company’s insurance plan. (Insurance is covered in Aaron’s union dues, so the plan would have to kick a lot of ass for me to buy my own.)

I should be hearing back from my interviewer by late this week or early next week to see whether I get a second interview. I’ll keep you all updated!

Interview in downtown Toledo in two hours. Data Warehousing in the Health Care industry. Wish me luck! I’ll let you know how it goes.

Or of being unemployed, anyway. Unemployment compensation comes later, if at all. (I might have a job before it has time to kick in. Hopefully.)

These couple of weeks have been an interesting ride so far. It’s quite a roller coaster, going from being energized and excited about finding a new job to being depressed and unmotivated and back again. I mean, I know that I’ll find a job; that’s not the issue. This issue is, how long do I keep applying for the jobs I really want and would really be excited about, and when will I lose the upbeat, positive, forward-thinking attitude and just start applying for anything that wouldn’t suck too much? How long will that downward spiral take, and will I jump off in time?

I’ve at least gotten some concrete “no” answers this week. The tally since April:

Total resumes submitted: 30
Number of employer rejections (or duplicate jobs from recruiters): 10
Number of jobs I’ve declined: 1
Number of positions about which I’ve never received a response, and have basically written off: 8
Number of recent job applications I’m still holding out hope for: 11
Number of interviews so far: 1

I need to slow down and actually use the battle plan I learned from my outplacement training. I need to update my Personal Marketing Plan and get it out to a many people as I can, and try to get an inside line on new jobs *before* they’re posted online. I have one such inside line in the works right now, and I’d have no problem taking this job if it pans out. I need insiders at other companies, though, and I need to work harder on that. Slower. More methodically. Not jumping at every opportunity like a drowning woman grasping at anything that floats by.

Focus. Calm determination. That’s what will get me a job.

And schmoozing. Don’t forget schmoozing.

*sigh*