On 3 March I wrote that my friend told me that she wanted me to do well on my interviews.
I got to my interviewee’s job site. He was an acquaintance that had given me his phone number. He answered my phone call and came down to meet me. It occurred to me that he had forgotten our meeting but was open to the discussion. When we got to the coffee shop I ordered and then we sat down and talked about my skills. I had mentioned that I was interviewing with his colleagues in an hour.
While waiting I had looked through the interviews I had had with people I knew and made a list of things to talk about. One of them was does anyone have a job? There was also does my contact know anyone? I noted that I might talk about my own ideas. They were also locations, company types and skills.
We began discussing my skills and he told me about a new software that was interesting.Then he started a pitch for his agency. He said he was a techie – an outlier – and most of his colleagues were a all a little bit of everything.
I noted that I was a generalist. He told me that that was good. He said analysts needed to have legal, corporate and other types of experience. He also said that they needed to examine complex issues.
I tried to get in some interview ideas. He said that I should expect them to go by the book when they interviewed me. They always have specifically three or four questions. He said to answer quickly and to the point with my experiences, to always answer the whole question and stick to my skills. He also told me that this questions will organize my thoughts and provide simple perspective.
I tried to ask about things my acquaintance had brought up and mentioned interviews. He misunderstood and thought this meant I haven't taken the exam yet. However, I said no. I pointed to his personal connections. He said he didn't know a lot of people for me to pursue. I asked about some contracting agencies and he told me the one he worked with was a very hard company to get a job at.
He went on to say that I should be really interested in his agency and to be patient. He said the application took a long time. He had been interviewed three times and it took him a year. However, he had mentioned that there were going to be a lot of empty spots coming up soon. I asked about more things and he told me that he had skipped several jobs and mentioned it was special provision in the office.
After he went back to his office I waited until I knew he had been gone long enough and then I also went over to the office. I took some notes and eventually the supervisor that had offered me the interview came down to get me. He brought brought me up to a conference room and gave me the prompts. I spent 15 minutes looking at them. When the group came in it was the initial supervisor a second supervisor and their boss. They told me her name but I didn’t really catch it.
I noted that the first question had three bullets: role, job requirements, outcome. I was a little concerned that I would have a problem because as I reread the prompt and began explaining my conceptualization she immediately said that some stuff had already been decided so start from there.
I told him my job was feature manipulation. I explained I was blackbox testing and as an analyst I had to provide quality assurance. I received tables identified errors and used the code. I explained hoop stress – the supervisor wanted to know what that was. I explained that I had to calculate my own results.
At this point the boss reiterated the questions and I had to start over. Eventually, I got to where I was able to explain my presentations to leadership. I noted that I was certain the boss asked more about this stuff but I don't know where.
From here we went to the next question about writing reports. I told them that I had thought a lot about this and selected a job. However I noted that I had been trained in how to write reports. I noted that there had to be graphs and believable references.
I explained the process of comparing personal systems. I told him that a graphic comparison of a small area it was easy but massive group so it was difficult. The supervisor, here, asked what was being compared and I reiterated parcel maps.
My notes had a list of things that I would compare and I ended up with a distribution and curves. I reiterated believable grass and images with references. Here are the boss piped in about how I presented data and analysis and I had to give a more thorough job of it. I brought my previous job into the discussion and mentioned leadership. I also differentiated between tech companies. The supervisor asked questions.
The final question was one of the hardest because I had prepared so little. I immediately went to the image I had drawn for myself and explained that the pressure project was the result of San Bruno and that I had to coordinate package people with engineers and also attend to unforseen issues as well as my old boss' pet projects.
They asked if I knew about special softwares and the second supervisor asked about well known softwares. I asked about my skill set and a couple of other things.
