Needle, Meet Haystack

We’ve all been there: something so exciting, so emotionally gratifying, so absolutely nerve-wrackingly terrific happens, and all common sense goes out the window.  Or at least gets shoved into the storage shed in the backyard.  And at no time will you have more occasions to misplace your logical brain than when you’re looking for or getting work.  Here’s a few lessons that I remembered a bit too late:

1. Remember your interviewer’s name. I suppose I could blame it on the receptionist’s thick accent when the interview was set up over the phone, but I didn’t bother to check with her, and on the day of the interview, his name was nowhere to be found!  Not on the door to his office, not on his desk…if not for subjective personal pronouns, I would have been in trouble!  However, one of his employees popped in and mentioned his name several times during a quick conversation.
2. Ask if there’s a dress code. After three rounds of interviews and getting the job, I thought that I had asked all there was to ask about the position.  But after a month in the office, my boss finally took me aside and said, “You do know that you can wear jeans and sneakers, right?”  Even though over dressing can be fine in some situations, it was making some of my co-workers a bit uncomfortable.
3. Take care of personal business before you go in for an interview. Living in the southwestern US means that summers can be especially brutal, so I tend to drink plenty of water to stay well-hydrated.  Although I was early for my interview, I ignored the warning signs from my bladder, and by the time I decided to go, I was called in.  After 30 of the most uncomfortable minutes of my life, the interview had ended (it was a preliminary one) and I was finally able to escape.
4. Have questions for your interviewers ready. “So, do you have any questions for me?” the manager asked.  I blanked.  I had no idea what to say, so I blurted out the first question that came to my mind.  ”What kind of toppings do you like on your pizza?”  I began.  ”Because, I, um, read something about how that reflects…personality type?”  Amazingly, this tactic stalled him for a couple of minutes while I was able to come up with some real questions to ask him.
5. Make sure you get important stuff in writing. After being hired on a Friday, I started work on Monday.  I continued at that job for a few months, but when the paychecks started coming later and later at improperly low levels and the work assignments moved farther away from what I was hired to do, I decided to consult my contract.  Until I realized that there had never been an official employment contract.  Soon after, I quit, only to be fired by my boss seconds later.

Of course, these aren’t the only boneheaded mistakes I made.  But more on that tomorrow.