juggling interviews ....

kaynaan

I am in a position that i could not imagine i would be in, just a few months ago.

I now have more interview than available time slots

just a few months ago when I applied for jobs I never even got a call, where as these days I am at an 85% batting average i.e I get calls from 85% of the jobs i applied for, resulting in at least 40%-50% landing an interview.

what have I changed you ask : ....well, I'm not 100% sure but hear are a few things.

1- got organized, I now have a spreadsheet for all the jobs I applied for .. including contact details and suggested dates to follow up and any other relevant details.

2- got a lil more experience the last few months

3- stopped wasting my time by not applying for jobs clearly out of my league i.e. if it says 10 years experience required they are probably looking in the 5~6 neighborhood, so it is safe to say a guy with 2~3 experience wont make the cut so don't bother .

4- followed all the suggestion and tips in the sticky thread "Resume Do's and Dont's " thank you mr. keenon and to everybody who has contributed in that thread with helpful suggestions

this mating dance that is the job hunting process requires your full attention you have to treat it like a job itself.

now that im done dispensing advice .. let me solicit some:

I took a day off tomorrow and scheduled 3 interviews 11:00 am , 2:00 pm , 4:00 pm.
there is a 4th interview that i could not fit into tomorrow and i dont want to take too many days off so close together because it does not look good for me and i get paid by the hour... any suggestions ?

sharptech

I am having the problem you used to have! I apply for a good number of jobs and call backs are at about 10%. I do have a spreadsheet and follow up with them, only to not even get responses.

I just changed my resume around and have yet to send it out, so waiting for the next job in line to see if that helps.

I am glad to see it has turned around for you and good luck in your interview process.

As for the fourth interview - see if you can schedule it next week - so if you take a day of tomorrow and one next week - would that be acceptable?

undomiel

That's a pretty nice quandry to be in kaynaan. I actually hit that issue last week though I've only had one interview this week. In-laws were in town from the weekend so I've been too busy to do more than apply to a job or two. Still getting lots of phone calls though but I never seem to be able to get ahold of the people when I call back. Oh well! I'm still confident.

On another note there is a very interesting take on job hunting at http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/

I'm not sure I agree 100% with the guy but 95-98% agreement is still a very high rating.

snadam

I must say, thats a nice problem to have

zen master

kaynaan wrote:

I am in a position that i could not imagine i would be in, just a few months ago.

I now have more interview than available time slots

just a few months ago when I applied for jobs I never even got a call, where as these days I am at an 85% batting average i.e I get calls from 85% of the jobs i applied for, resulting in at least 40%-50% landing an interview.

what have I changed you ask : ....well, I'm not 100% sure but hear are a few things.

1- got organized, I now have a spreadsheet for all the jobs I applied for .. including contact details and suggested dates to follow up and any other relevant details.

This is an EXCELLENT idea. I actually started scanning and saving all the job postings that I apply for. Honestly, by the time the interview comes around for most jobs, I've forgotten what the requirements were. I've got one coming up actually, but that was for a job I applied to about 6 months ago, and I can't seem to find that particular one. I do know it looked really really interesting.

kaynaan wrote:

2- got a lil more experience the last few months

3- stopped wasting my time by not applying for jobs clearly out of my league i.e. if it says 10 years experience required they are probably looking in the 5~6 neighborhood, so it is safe to say a guy with 2~3 experience wont make the cut so don't bother .

4- followed all the suggestion and tips in the sticky thread "Resume Do's and Dont's " thank you mr. keenon and to everybody who has contributed in that thread with helpful suggestions

this mating dance that is the job hunting process requires your full attention you have to treat it like a job itself.

now that im done dispensing advice .. let me solicit some:

I took a day off tomorrow and scheduled 3 interviews 11:00 am , 2:00 pm , 4:00 pm.
there is a 4th interview that i could not fit into tomorrow and i dont want to take too many days off so close together because it does not look good for me and i get paid by the hour... any suggestions ?

I sometimes try to squeeze in interviews in my lunch hour. That's not really a good idea if the spot is far off, or if you really want to impress. One or two times I cut it too close and ended up showing up late for the interview, or late back from lunch. It's a bit of a gamble. In fact, you should probably forget I mentioned it at all.

kaynaan

I just came back from my last interview .. and i must say it has been an interesting day driving to different corners of the city.

all of them went really well, despite the small amount of time between interviews and their disparate locations i managed to get to all of them on time.

that 4th i scheduled for next week ... and incidentally on my drive back from the last interview i go a call for another one which i scheduled for the same day next week.

lets hope my recent luck translates to job offers !

kaynaan

I'm happy to report that i was offered 2 of the jobs that i had interview for on that day !


I've already accepted one of them and begin as a Network Admin next month

dynamik

That's awesome! Congrats

zen master

Great to hear. What's the job description like, and how's the salary, more or less than you hoped for?

kaynaan

Thank you for the well wishes gents

The job is Network Admin for a 50 stations in a small engineering firm. they are looking to expend to 200+ within the next year and keep growing.

right now im the only IT guy but within a year i'll be starting to hire more junior tech guys and within 3 years if im still around IT would be broken off into a separate department of which i will be the Manager.

initially i accepted the offer from the other company .. their position was a systems analyst role which is more junior but alot more safe and stable they were willing to pay for phone,gas,laptop and any IT related edcutation including the remaining courses for my Masters and any and all certs the only prob would be i would need a few years to get to the level i would be beginning at the other company.

their salaries were pretty close but the engineering firm had a ton more responsibility .. so i told them i had another offer with almost the same amount with a alot less responsibilities they came back with a counter-offer more than 10K above the budget of the junior position of the other company.

i only wish i had the junior position 2/3 years ago .. but better late than never .. and this is my first permanent employee position before now i was bouncing from contract job to contract job

snokerpoker

Congrats! This is awesome news, I hope everything works out for you.

gojericho0

Well done. It sounds like you are in perfect position to grow with the company since IT will be your baby

TechStriker

Congratulations this is amazing news

zen master

Congrats and good luck!

sharptech

Nice job!

I just received an offer as well just waiting on a few things, looking like this board is picking up with some new hires :P

Hope you enjoy the new job, sounds like an excellent opportunity!!