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Matt Meiser
04-10-2007, 8:31 PM
Tomorrow night I'm flying to St. Louis for a Thursday job interview. I already had a phone interview with the president of the company last week which obviously went well. From what I've heard so far, this would be a great job and a step forward for my career which has been pretty stagnant for the past couple years due to office politics, the Michigan economy, and company re-orgs. I was hoping things would turn around, but things have gotten pretty dicey lately and I think its a sign that is time for me to move on. This will be my first job interview since summer 2000 so hopefully I'm not too rusty. :eek:

BTW, IF I get the job, I wouldn't be relocating as they do the virtual office thing.

Jeffrey Makiel
04-10-2007, 8:36 PM
Matt...If I'm not imposing, what line of business are you in?

Anyway...good luck and have a safe trip.

-Jeff :)

Matt Meiser
04-10-2007, 8:42 PM
Matt...If I'm not imposing, what line of business are you in?

I do software development (consulting) and have a lot of specialized skills related to industrial software integration--i.e. plant floor data collection, recipe systems, downtime analysis, integration to business systems, etc.

Jim Becker
04-10-2007, 8:47 PM
Matt...go get 'em!!! I'm sure you'll do fine in your interview. Just be "you".

Charles McKinley
04-10-2007, 8:47 PM
Good Luck Matt. We're pulling for you.

Art Mulder
04-10-2007, 9:03 PM
I'm sure you'll do fine in your interview. Just be "you".

I'm not sure if this is what you meant, Jim, but I used to take a pretty relaxed attitude to interviews. I figured, I want it to be honest and authentically me, so I should just go in and be myself and see how things go.

But the last few years, most every place I've been is now doing "behavioral" interviews. They ask all these "tell me about a specific time when you handled conflict in your job" questions. Or "Tell me about a time when you had too many things to do and you were required to prioritize your tasks." Most of these questions I find to be artificial and contrived, but what can you do?

I find that I just can't go in "cold" to an interview any more. I really need to do lots of homework - I make sure I've put together a whole bunch of sample answers to these sorts of questions. I try to anticipate all the things I'll be asked and have examples and answers at hand.

In some ways it is a bit of a weird game. There are three types of skills here. There is the skill to find the job (do the networking, find out about opportunities, generate a really good cover letter to get noticed...). There is teh skill to do the interview. (mentioned above) and finally there is the skill to actually do the job itself. And these are three different skills! :cool:

Keith Outten
04-10-2007, 9:04 PM
Good Luck Matt,

I wonder what it would be like to have your boss in another state? Oh well, as long as he keeps signing your time sheets :)

.

Belinda Barfield
04-11-2007, 1:36 PM
Best of luck Matt! I'll be cheering for you tomorrow.

Dennis Peacock
04-11-2007, 1:39 PM
Good Luck Matt,

I wonder what it would be like to have your boss in another state? Oh well, as long as he keeps signing your time sheets :)

.

Ha.....that's easy. I've had a boss in AZ while I worked in AR, I've had a boss in TX while I worked in AL, and I now have a community I server with the server in Virginia, both admins are there as well while I moderate from AR. :p :D

Dennis Peacock
04-11-2007, 1:40 PM
Best of Luck to ya Matt!!! You will do just fine, I'm sure of it. :D

Mark Pruitt
04-11-2007, 2:17 PM
I wonder what it would be like to have your boss in another state?
I've had one that was in another world. Didn't like it.:mad: :p

Mark Pruitt
04-11-2007, 2:18 PM
Best to you Matt! Hope you get exactly what you want!

Jim Becker
04-11-2007, 2:21 PM
I wonder what it would be like to have your boss in another state?

Pretty much SOP in my industry, especially with virtual office situations...my current boss lives in DE. My previous boss of over 6 years lives in FL. Heck, even my phone number lives in CO!

-----

And Art, you're correct...one must be prepared and hiring practices are using a lot of interesting techniques these days. But that doesn't mean you need or should present as someone you are not. That can lead to issues later should you get the position.

Matt Meiser
04-13-2007, 9:52 AM
Well I think it went well. It was actually a very enjoyable day. I had breakfast with one owner, then they did the group interview thing with two groups of 2-3 people inteviewing me, then lunch, then a final meeting with the other owner who is the president. He then sent me an email saying he would call me early next week to "discuss where we go from here."

Al Willits
04-13-2007, 9:55 AM
Sounds great, good luck.

Al

David G Baker
04-13-2007, 10:20 AM
Matt,
I sure hope you get the new job and you get the great feeling of denying your old company the benefit of your services. You seem like a hard working, intelligent and dedicated person. It takes a company a lot of time and money to train a person to meet the skill level and experience that they need to be a successful company. When a company looses a number of good employees like you, it is only a matter of time before the company goes belly up. I think you are smart to get out before the ship sinks.
Best of luck to you.

Rob Bodenschatz
04-13-2007, 10:53 AM
From one software development consultant to another, I wish you the best of luck, Matt. Times have been tough for us for the last couple of years but things really seem to be exploding lately. I've been independent for the last ten years so I've felt the ups & downs of the industry first-hand. This is definitely an "up" time.

From what I know about you around here, the company would be crazy not to hire a guy with such a good head on his shoulders.