It was a lovely day in Boston. 89 degrees and sunny and there I was traipsing around the financial distric in nylons (toeless nylons, but none-the-less suffocating in the heat) and heels. Thanks to the wacky commuter rail schedule I had to take a train in that arrived at 1 pm for my 3pm interview. This gave me time to have a lovely outdoor lunch with a friend at the Milk Street Cafe.
My interview seemed to go well today. Mostly.Things did not start off well. I got to the office at around 2:40 pm. When I got upstairs they were alarmed at my timing. Not a good sign. I explained that I had arrived in Boston at 1 pm, had lunch with a friend, and then we wandered around a bit, but that I wanted to make sure I was not late for my 3 pm appointment. Someone there screwed up the scheduling because the person I was supposed to meet with didn't show up until almost 3:30 pm. He thought that I was supposed to meet with someone else there first. The other person had no idea what he was talking about. It has been my experience that some non-profits can be a little disorganized, but this was kind of odd.
Overall, I think that they were impressed with my media knowledge (such as complimenting their buying commercial time during the Daily Show and then giving them some more suggestions on how to reach a younger, hipper demo), the fact that I've managed volunteers before, and with the fact that I serve on a community board (gives me cred in the community services field I guess). I was troubled by the fact that they do not seem totally sure of what they want the job to be- the original description was heavy on community action/Holocaust/Darfur/etc programming and PR for that and also some senior citizen advocacy efforts- but then I was asked a hypothetical about how I'd feel if it were more media oriented (fine with me). I'm not sure what my overall impression was. I did like it when we were talking salary and they said that they like to make sure "its livable". That is important.
After it was over I just made the 5pm train home and ended up having to share my seat. Sometimes you get stuck with an annoying seat buddy, but he was nice to chat with. We spoke about the upcoming Newport Folk Fest, restuarants in New England, and Frank Black's cover of the Elvis tune "Song of the Shrimp".
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
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2 comments:
One of the culture-shock things for me in Ireland has been the lackadasical attitude toward punctuality. In Chicago, it was pretty much customary to arrive 20 to 30 minutes early for an interview since you'd usually have to fill out an application.
Here, I have never had an interview start on time. People act like I'm some sort of space alien if I arrive early, even 5 minutes.
Anybody who thinks it is WRONG for you to arrive early to a job interview is an idiot. I would love to hear about such a situation where the prospect actually got or took the job.
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