Friday, February 13, 2009

Hot-lanta

Yesterday I arose at the early hour of 4am to hit the road to Atlanta for an interview. Man, I was excited. A great agency in a great town and an actual INTERVIEW. It was going to be more than the informational interviews I had been having with folks. I brushed up on my buzzwords to use, practicing the cool answers to questions like, "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" and "Describe yourself in a situation when things don't go as you had planned?" and all the other funny and odd questions you get. After about an hour on the road I couldn't quite figure out why I was ready to fall into a deep slumber. Then it hit me, my body clock was telling me it was 2am PST. Anyway, I got there in one piece and it was a good trip with lots of sun and hardly any traffic.



Well, the interview in Atlanta went well, at least parts of it did. I walked away feeling good about the situation even though things sort of got off to a weird start. I was able to meet with three different people during my time. The first person I met with was the typical interviewee where if you didn't get the right words out to sell yourself in the first 3 minutes your chances of moving the discussion forward were slim to none. I thought I was able detail my background and experience well enough to keep the conversation moving, but then the dreaded "have you ever done this" question was posed. These are the toughest questions and situations to deal with if you haven't done or don't have the experience of what is being asked. I think spin is the right phrase to keep the conversation moving. Unfortunately for me I don't think I did a good enough job "spinning" the answer to the question and the brief interview was over.

As bummed as I was, I knew I still would have the opportunity to talk with two other people. The second person I had the pleasure of meeting was enjoyable from start to finish. I also did my part by answering the few questions that were asked correctly. I opened myself up to some tough experiences from my past work and was able to engage the other person in a casual, yet professionally constructive conversation. As with the first person I met with, my time was short and off I went to the third and final person I was to meet with.


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