The Job Hunt Thread

[TheHaitian]

I agree drama, it sounds really promising! Good luck tomorrow!

[TheHaitian]

I think my interview went well, went on for 1.5 hours! It was more like a conversation than a formal interview.

She said HR will contact me back and I may have to do a 3rd interview for the VP...

How many interviews to get a job? The days of 1 and done are gone?

1 phone interview
3 in person interviews

I am tired of interviewing!

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Amen. I was pissed that I had to do three interviews and a job shadowing with Quality Clinical and still didn't get the job.  That's A LOT to put people thru just to screen them.

At least I was unemployed at the time so I could be flexible. I can imagine if they called you while still employed things get interesting, especially since they expect you to job shadow for half a day. 

That's a lot of vacation time to burn.

[debthaven]

Drama that sounds very promising! 

Carl, you too! 

To me it sounds like they just want the last person to approve before they give you an offer.

Fingers and toes crossed for both of you!

Drama I am SURE they were impressed by how you refused to leave the lab / take the phone call (can't remember which) on short notice because you were dealing with the mice. 

ETA: Drama, remind me ... I know this job would mean more money, but what about the rest? Hours? Commute?

[mojothehelpermonkey]

Oct 20, 2015 16:43:01 GMT -5 TheHaitian said:

I think my interview went well, went on for 1.5 hours! It was more like a conversation than a formal interview.

She said HR will contact me back and I may have to do a 3rd interview for the VP...

How many interviews to get a job? The days of 1 and done are gone?

1 phone interview
3 in person interviews

I am tired of interviewing!

It seems endless. I have made it to the 3rd round of interviews and still not gotten the job. Or maybe I did, they never got back to me.
It gets easier though. I have so many different versions of my resume on file that I only have to spend a few minutes tweaking it to apply for any specific job in my field.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Oct 20, 2015 16:43:01 GMT -5 TheHaitian said:

I think my interview went well, went on for 1.5 hours! It was more like a conversation than a formal interview.

She said HR will contact me back and I may have to do a 3rd interview for the VP...

How many interviews to get a job? The days of 1 and done are gone?

1 phone interview
3 in person interviews

I am tired of interviewing!

I went on a job interview that lasted 2 days.  Believe me, it sucked being 'on' all day.  First day, I met with the head honcho and he took me to dinner.  Dropped me off at the hotel.  Next day, I interviewed with no less than 8 different people, including a lunch interview.

I was brain dead at the end of that day.

[quince]

The first job I go out of college (Ok, so the only job I had after college) I had 3 in-person interviews. For a $10/hour job. 

I can't imagine how much fun it would be to job-hunt while still employed.

[taz157]

Oct 20, 2015 16:40:04 GMT -5 TheHaitian said:

I agree drama, it sounds really promising! Good luck tomorrow!

Yeah that!

Good luck to you Carl too!

[NastyWoman]

Oct 20, 2015 15:14:03 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

Okay so riddle me this. I got a phone call today from the PI I didn't meet with last Friday. She'd like to meet with me too so I am going to try to get there tomorrow since my schedule for the day is set here, I can just come in early so I can leave an hour early.

They want me to come in so she can meet me, I can be introduced to the lab staff and they want to discuss more details with me.

Sound promising to you guys? I have no idea to be honest.  I went thru three interviews and a job shadowing with Quality Clinical but still didn't get the job so I don't know if I should be excited about this second meeting or not.

Remember that you only can win the lottery if you play.  And this has a lot better chances of winning  I sure hope they'll offer you the job and not at the lowest salary point either.  You are due for a break

TheHaitian best wishes for you too.  And a nice raise for you to make up for the cr*p you recently went through with your current employer would be a good thing.

[TheHaitian]

Thank you and I am really hoping instead of a 3rd interview I get a job offer! Really...

I have put on a brave face so far, and had to juggle my work schedule and being able to make an interview... It would be near impossible if I were interview at several places instead of of just 1 while holding down my job.

I told her my current salary with my new promotion was $85,330 + bonus and she did not bat an eye; she was like : we can definitely work with that!

She said as long as it is not something like $120,000 and I said : I would not mind that either... And we both laughed!

Really the money is secondary, looking for the overall package:
- family/life balance
- benefits
- salary

I have been wanting a move to corporate and this company headquarters being 20 minutes from my house will make that more feasible vs having to relocate to upstate NY again.

[TheHaitian]

Oct 20, 2015 19:20:32 GMT -5 quince said:

I can't imagine how much fun it would be to job-hunt while still employed.

Doing it now and it is not fun at all because you do not pick they days they can interview you... They do. So might be lucky it is a day off or it is not and you need to figure out how to juggle it.

And interviews are doing the weekday during work hours... It is like they expect you to drop your current job and just focus on getting their job. No my current job is my backup in case I don't care that job!

I got lucky that I applied for 1 job and heard back really quick before I moved on to 2-3 and 4. I would hate to have to juggle 2-3 different interviews at different locations while still working my normal job!

I know for my old boss it was a dead giveaway he was job hunting when he started to burn so many of his personal and vacation days!

[andi9899]

Oct 20, 2015 16:43:01 GMT -5 TheHaitian said:

I think my interview went well, went on for 1.5 hours! It was more like a conversation than a formal interview.

She said HR will contact me back and I may have to do a 3rd interview for the VP...

How many interviews to get a job? The days of 1 and done are gone?

1 phone interview
3 in person interviews

I am tired of interviewing!

I had 6 interviews for my last job. One other one I had at least 5 interviews before not making it to the end. They told me that I would have to go through many interviews to get to the final one though.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Drama, remind me ... I know this job would mean more money, but what about the rest? Hours? Commute?

More money, back at UNMC so the commute would be the same. Hours would be roughly the same.

My insurance premiums would be slashed in half which is not insignificant.

It also sounds like this job is more up my alley.  It would get me back to the level I was at in the COP and it fits better with my skill set.   Here I stare at a computer screen clicking the space bar all day and they micromanage like I am fresh out of school.  It took me four months before they finally allowed me to get the animals myself.    That's insane considering I completed the IACUC training in less than 8 hours and have 10 years animal husbandry experience.

It's also been four months and I haven't conducted a single experiment. They just have me collecting mountains of control data, hardly any of which has been analyzed.   I've managed to outpace them as far as workload goes but instead of matching my pace they plod along and toss more busy data collection at me.

Nothing is moving forward.  I only have 2 years here I can't afford to stagnate, it will hurt my career if I continue along at this pace.   I need to be moving forward, not backward.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

sure hope they'll offer you the job and not at the lowest salary point either.

Even if they do I still come out ahead by almost 8 grand.  I haven't seen a salary raise that high since 2009.

Of course I'd want more, who doesn't?   But if they were to lowball me I am honestly OK with it since no matter what they pay it I come out significantly ahead of where I am at now.

[tcu2003]

Drama, can you negotiate at all in academia? If they lowball you, in a business world, I'd tell you to counter at least slightly higher, but I'm not sure how that works in academia and lab settings.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

There isn't a ton of room to negotiate.  You're being paid off someone's grant which is only $X amount of dollars and only lasts so many years.   The price points for each title are pretty fixed.

It's really up to the university to decide how much I am paid.  I know my boss at Creighton had to fight to get me $10/hr and he had plenty of money to pay me that or more.

Let's see what this afternoon brings and go from there. 

DH thinks "discuss details" means they are going to negotiate a contract with me.  He said there shouldn't be much to discuss if they weren't interested in hiring me.

But as we've talked about nowadays the interview process has become so convoluted it's hard for the prospective employee to know for sure what's going on.

[TheHaitian]

Good luck Drama, hope after today you get a solid job offer!

I am waiting to hear back which is usually the worst part. But the person I interviewed with yesterday made it sound like I was already in, moving forward to interview #4.

We will see... So many hoops to jump through to get a job!

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I know! Job hunting while being employed is a bitch.

Usually it's known I am losing my position so it's not a big deal if I disappear to an interview at odd hours during the day and come back.

In this case I don't want my employer knowing so it's tricky to schedule things around when the interviewer wants me to come in.   If things don't work out I need to be able to pretend nothing ever happened.

This is when being a working mom comes in handy  Yes I am totally being one of "those" workers and using my kids as an excuse to leave early.

[Wisconsin Beth]

Good luck both of you!  And everyone else with interviews too.  I keep hoping/expecting to see updates that you've been offered the job! 

[muttleynfelix]

Oct 21, 2015 9:53:10 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

I know! Job hunting while being employed is a bitch.

Usually it's known I am losing my position so it's not a big deal if I disappear to an interview at odd hours during the day and come back.

In this case I don't want my employer knowing so it's tricky to schedule things around when the interviewer wants me to come in.   If things don't work out I need to be able to pretend nothing ever happened.

This is when being a working mom comes in handy  Yes I am totally being one of "those" workers and using my kids as an excuse to leave early.

Doing it in a town 7 hrs from where you live was really nuts. Fortunately everyone was very accommodating, but I had to plan the trip and then take off 2 days from work.

[shanendoah]

Good luck to both NomoreDramaQ1015 and TheHaitian. Hope to look in later today or tomorrow and see good news.

For my current position, I did 2 interviews. But the others I was moving forward with at the same time had more. Both of those were three in person interviews after a phone screening/interview.

[giramomma]

Quick question for anyone reading.....I'm tomorrow I'm taking an interview at a company that deals with mergers and acquisitions...

What kind of questions should I expect at the interview? It's for data entry and some research. The required skills I need are transferable from my current experience...

I'm totally out of my element, though, with the general field. I'm 40, and I can still count on one hand how many non-student job interviews I've taken...

[lurkyloo]

Oct 20, 2015 19:06:37 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

Oct 20, 2015 16:43:01 GMT -5 TheHaitian said:

I think my interview went well, went on for 1.5 hours! It was more like a conversation than a formal interview.

She said HR will contact me back and I may have to do a 3rd interview for the VP...

How many interviews to get a job? The days of 1 and done are gone?

1 phone interview
3 in person interviews

I am tired of interviewing!

I went on a job interview that lasted 2 days.  Believe me, it sucked being 'on' all day.  First day, I met with the head honcho and he took me to dinner.  Dropped me off at the hotel.  Next day, I interviewed with no less than 8 different people, including a lunch interview.

I was brain dead at the end of that day.

Not unusual at higher levels--what's unusual to me is seeing these interviews that are only 1-2 hours!  Of the three on-sites I had on my most recent job hunt the first was just an all-day (8-5 pm); the second was dinner with three people the night before (~3 hours) plus 8-4:30 the next day; the third was dinner the night before plus 8-2pm (had to catch a same-day connecting flight or it would've gone longer).  Each one involved giving an hourlong seminar to start the official interview day, and travel to-from each site was also significant.

In general everyone was really nice but I totally borked the end-of-day HR interview for the middle interview...okay not totally, but I wasn't at all happy with my answers in retrospect.  I wasn't quite what they were looking for and the location wouldn't really have worked for DH, but it still sucked to get the rejection email.

Good luck to all, and keep us posted!  

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I got the job!!!!!!!!!!!

Formal letter should be in my inbox tomorrow morning. They understand I am not giving my notice until it's 100% official. Should move fast since I was employed there at the beginning of the year.

Estimated start date is November 9th.

OMG I can do so much with a bigger paycheck.    We can put aside money for the house (we're going to buy it from my parents), I can put aside money for braces, more retirement, bigger EF.   We're looking at gross another $21k in the five years I'm with this lab.

First I am finally getting a new couch!

[Pants]

Oct 21, 2015 19:35:41 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

I got the job!!!!!!!!!!!

Formal letter should be in my inbox tomorrow morning. They understand I am not giving my notice until it's 100% official. Should move fast since I was employed there at the beginning of the year.

Estimated start date is November 9th.

OMG I can do so much with a bigger paycheck.    We can put aside money for the house (we're going to buy it from my parents), I can put aside money for braces, more retirement, bigger EF.   We're looking at gross another $21k in the five years I'm with this lab.

First I am finally getting a new couch!

Yes!!! What's your pay scale? This is awesome!!!

[cyanne]

Congratulations!!! Way to go, Drama!

[NastyWoman]

Oct 21, 2015 19:35:41 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

I got the job!!!!!!!!!!!

Formal letter should be in my inbox tomorrow morning. They understand I am not giving my notice until it's 100% official. Should move fast since I was employed there at the beginning of the year.

Estimated start date is November 9th.

OMG I can do so much with a bigger paycheck.    We can put aside money for the house (we're going to buy it from my parents), I can put aside money for braces, more retirement, bigger EF.   We're looking at gross another $21k in the five years I'm with this lab.

First I am finally getting a new couch!

 PARTY  !!!

I am sooooo happy for you

[Jaguar]

CONGRATULATIONS NomoreDramaQ1015, WOO HOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[alabamagal]

Yay Drama!

[resolution]

Congratulations!!!!