A Long Week and a Short Post

I had intended to post before tonight. But…

My computer has been down with a virus. Nothing I haven’t been able to deal with but with thousands upon thousands of large photo files on my hard drive scanning for problems takes for ever. It seems to be all fixed now. But it has taken what little posting/commenting time I would have had.

Also I have had a verrrrrry long week at work. I sooooo know why I am looking for another job.

My job hunting is still going on. As I said I had an interview earlier in the week.
I don’t think it was great, unlike the others I have had I did not come away with the feeling that I particularly impressed them.

I also have some mixed good/bad news on other jobs. If you have been following my job hunting you will remember I had an interview for a Public Service job back in March. I came away from that interview feeling I’d blitzed it then one of the panel phoned me the same afternoon and asked me to apply for another job.

Well I still haven’t heard about the other job. However, the head of the first interview panel phoned me yesterday and said they had unfortunately decided not to give me the first job.
But there was good news too, she said the person who they just gave it to ahead of me is a really experienced senior public servant and they felt she just edged me out. What she said was that they were very impressed with me, and while she couldn’t promise anything if something came up in her unit she would ask me to apply. She is a senior, very no-nonsense person and unless I have totally misread her she was very serious.
The fact that she chose to ring me, rather than the usual thanks but no thanks email also convinces me I came very close.

So we will see.
Now I am just home at 8:30pm so that is it for me for tonight.

I will try to do a proper post tomorrow, but failing that I’ll post the next extract featuring Valentina on Sunday.

Strange Experiences in the Job market.

As I have said I am looking for a new job and have put in a few applications.

Both yesterday and today I have had strange job hunting experiences.

First up I had an interview back on the 1st.

I thought it went really well, but I hadn’t heard anything. So I kind of assumed it wasn’t as good as I thought.

I had decided I would phone next week to ask for feedback on how I’d interviewed. I’d leave it till then because I knew I had another interview coming up today.

But yesterday they phoned me up and said:

1. They were really sorry they had taken so long to get back to me.
2. They weren’t going to give me the job but they had really been impressed and it had been between myself and one other candidate.

I’ll look at the positive and say I didn’t misread the situation in the interview. I interviewed well and came close.

Today I had another interview, this was for the Victorian public service job I put in for.

I was asked to arrive at least half an hour before the interview.
When I got there I had to read through a number of scenarios and take notes because part of the interview would be based on my responses to their scenarios.

The interview panel was made up of three senior public service officials. To be honest I had decided that although they are interviewing me I didn’t have much chance. It is quite a senior position and I have ZERO public service experience.

Perhaps because of this I went in feeling really relaxed. It seemed to go really well.
I felt I really hit it off with the panel, they seemed to be very impressed with my answers to their scenarios and I didn’t struggle with any of the other questions they asked.

At the end the most senior manager elected to walk me out of the building. She will be my immediate superior if I get the job. It seemed relaxed and chatty still.

As she left me at the lift (that would be an elevator) she warned me that while they will probably make a decision quite quickly I will probably hear nothing for several weeks. This is because any internal applicants get to hear first and run through grievance processes if they don’t get the job before they can appoint someone external.

So I came away thinking I have a real chance at this.

Then on the way home I get a phone call. It is one of the interview panel.
He says don’t get too excited because they haven’t made a decision yet.
But, he is happy to tell me they are all really impressed.
Then he says he will probably get in trouble for trying to poach me off his senior but there is another job at an equivalent level that he really wants me to submit an application.

I’ve never experienced anything quite like this before. I guess it is likely that they have someone else in mind for the job I went for today, but here is one of the panel asking me to apply for another job they have.

Seems very positive however I look at it.