Got Off at Gough

At six it was difficult to get up. I noted that it was easy to catch the express but I did have to run. I got off at Gough and I went to the apartment before I took BART Oakland.  I walked to a well known East Bay agency and sat writing in my notebook for a while. My acquaintance came in a bit early. He told me we would go straight to Peet's.

On the way I described my interaction with my last informant. She had suggested I ask people to talk. He mentioned informational interviews. I thought it sounded strange because that's what I thought we were doing.

We got in line and we put our jackets at the table. We ordered – he needed food. I didn't offered to pay. I mentioned the president of our mutual association. Moments later I sat waiting and when he sat down I made small talk about traveling. I told him about my domestic situation.

He returned to the informational interview idea and I explained more about my last informant. Also I asked about his user group and the association president. He addressed my questions and I also asked about listservs especially with the association and mentioned.

He didn't mention this but I noticed I didn't actually say what I do – my skills -- while I was talking.  However, I did mention the two sectors I had interest in. I talked about the a bay area wide agency. He explained a lot about his experience. He had had a job at an agency in his community and mentioned a bit about his ex-wife helping him with interview questions. He also had a friend that did that.

I brought up the job I had applied to at his agency and explained my experience with the job posting. He said they have the prompts so that you can give them a really good answer. I explained that I didn't really know what to write because I knew I could do the work but wasn't able to speak to the specifics. He said I need to focus on myself and not dwell on the specifics.

I explained that I knew that interviews are complicated for a supervisor. He then explained that the position I had applied for was actually three jobs. He said someone had quit. They had two mid-level jobs and a high-level job. They couldn't fill it so they reposted it. He said they use HR filters, then he selects, then they forward the selection to an outside consultant and finally he tries to interview about five people.

He told me that my resume was too sterile. I understood. I also said it works on websites. He said I needed to use first person. He was surprised but also recognized that as a contractor this would be my perspective.

He said that contracting was often fine. He had worked with a private business that had been purchased but was not fully integrated for spinning off and ultimately failed. His old coworker was a shoo-in at his agency but quit for a private job. However, the public agency job was better in the long run and he returned.

I noted that this was one of the times when I needed to interrupt but I didn't because he was describing useful information. However he never told me the specifics about the people involved. He returned to interviews because that's what we were doing. He had a lot of enthusiasm.

He told me informational interviews should be planned and that I was interviewing them. I noted that they might not want to hire me but that's not why we sit down with them. My last informant had said the same. He described questions and said these things several times.

I discovered that he had brought my resume. He also brought several examples of what he thought were important. He thought it needed a summary and skills.  He also said that writing in first person was also very important. He also said that my resume was a good length.

I noted that at some point I asked about jobs he had heard about. He said that I hadn't really taken the time to describe myself. That was when he asked me about my favorite job. I told him about my favorite boss but he told me that I needed to talk about myself. I took the time to describe the job at this point and then he told me that I was being too broad. That was when he said that I should just say A, B and C and be done.

I described a job I had recently interviewed for and how they thought I had been too talkative. He told me that he had a friend that had worked for that company. I noted that I should probably ask him about that.

He explained two things. First they have specific needs/wants -I should speak to those in the informational interviews. Second, I should write everything brand-new.

At this point he made apologies for being critical but I tried to say criticism was welcome. He said that I should offer to buy coffee, make my resume first person and to Google informational interviews as well as cover letters to get the kind of sample questions I needed.

I told him I always want to cut and paste because I'm afraid to do the thinking. He asked for more information. I said that and analyst the boss always wants information quick with no frills. I told him I felt like I should stick to what works. He told me that he understood but also indicated I needed to insert things everywhere.  By this point we were way over time so I started hurrying up. Dennis was still putting a fine point on several things when we walked to the BART entrance. I said bye then.

This series of experiences are conversations that I have had with knowledgeable people about my career or job interests. This Interview Series is meant to describe the basic elements of an interview and how I have gone about participating in one.