Just got back from the not-interview informal coffee thing, and though I felt fairly calm throughout, now the nerves (and possibly the caffeine) are kicking in. I think I did pretty well and managed to articulate a lot of the points that would make me a good match for the job, but of course there are things I would've said differently, things I left out, etc.
The worst blunder was that I printed out a resume right before the meeting, to have just in case. I've recently been paring it down ruthlessly and just got it on one page. I took off the big header with my name and contact info with the intention of replacing that with something smaller and simpler--but I hadn't actually added it back to the version I printed out. So I tried to make light of it while I wrote my contact info on it, saying I was just starting to job-search and was still in the process of working on my resume. We bonded a bit about how hard it was to get back into that mindset once you'd been at a job for a while.
I actually think it might be OK, because this was an informal meetup and I wasn't required to bring one. Plus, it really was out of the blue (though I had a week to prepare), since my friend who works there told me about it informally. I think it was better to have something even if it was missing a header. But of course that's one of those things I keep going back to and mentally smacking myself for.
I dunno. I've conducted a lot of interviews myself and been involved in hiring decisions, and I'm one of those people who will forgive a lot of slip-ups that experts tell you are the kiss of death, if I get a sense the candidate will be good. Including people forgetting to write thank-you notes after, being a little late to an interview, and once (OMG!) I hired someone even after they called an employee after the interview to ask if we drug-test. (And you know what? He turned out great and he's still at that company I used to work for.) So hopefully if he got a good sense overall, the resume-header thing won't be a big deal.
Fellow SA job-seekers, I forgot how weird it feels. It's like blind-dating or something!
Nerves post-interviewish-thing
April 20th, 2011 at 06:32 pm
April 20th, 2011 at 06:48 pm 1303321686
I hope you hear back soon one way or the other! (hopefully positive news!)
April 20th, 2011 at 08:24 pm 1303327489
April 20th, 2011 at 09:15 pm 1303330550
Fingers crossed here!
April 21st, 2011 at 01:29 am 1303345781
April 21st, 2011 at 06:07 am 1303362420
April 21st, 2011 at 03:55 pm 1303397704