You think a few interview test questions are hard?

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Had an interview on Friday for a local outfit, there are two roles they think I will be right for
one is just <$100k and is primarily based in town, with 25% attachment to national projects, requiring travel
one is >$100k but is almost pure travel, a road warrior type role with almost pure attachment to national projects in a PS capacity, Think I'll take the pay cut at this point, but that's still up in the air with the missis

I've been asked back for a second interview, and I've been given a high level business case for an imaginary company, I have to prepare a presentation where I will treat the interviewees as my client, it will include all the technical staff, some of the business analysts and sales team, as well as the two direct reports

Obviously the quicker I prep and call back to 'schedule' the gauntlet the better, wouldn't look brilliant if I take two weeks to prepare a high level proposal.
I'm actually in the process of preparing three solutions at various complexities/prices points, I'm a big fan of choice and flexibility, and I don't believe in delivering just one choice to a client
During the delivery any of the staff can throw in curve balls, drill me for more detailed information etc, and the solution is pretty much an end to end platform for a greenfield location

This will be fun

I've actually been waiting around for a decent local position, I've been in talks with one local company since I got here, but they have to justify my employment to the big wigs, and there just has not been enough work for the justification, a company from CA has also just announced it is opening a local office and hiring new staff for it, they focus on virtualization and netapp storage, two of my strong points, apparantly they are also interested. A friend also just moved from VMWare to another vendor and thinks there is a position for me there too. It seems just like a London bus, you wait forever then four come along at once, lets hope one of them 'bites' and I'm earning my keep again by Chrimbo

 

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sounds exciting! hope you get it.

 

Good Luck!

 

Sounds good, keep us informed

 

Bit of an update

The company I have been talking to for a few months want me to go visit the HQ to meet with the CTO, CEO and some other important folks for a more formal interview (a suit is still not required, I could get used to this)

I'm flying to Seattle on Friday apparently (they will be organizing it all for me) for the interview, so a busy week for me. Second interview with one company, three page paper due for class and an interview 700 miles away. I'll keep you posted

 

Will definitely work out... cheers

 

That sounds very promising Ryan, the best of luck to you mate

 

Kewl. This is the way it always seems to work out. You da man. Good luck and knock 'em dead.

 

Company A have invited me out to a Hockey game tonight to meet more of the team and some clients lots of face time considering I don't have the job yet, keen is good though!

Company A talks were started via a random email I sent to one of their employees last year when attending VMWorld, we didn't manage to meet at VMWorld due to our schedules, but it's progressed to..

Lunch with contact
Lunch with contact + boss
Movies + Beer with contact
Morning at the office with contact
Hockey game with boss + other staff + vendor/clients
Flight/Rental car for Friday meeting with C Levels

That's a fair bit of investment for a 'potential' candidate if you ask me (I haven't paid a penny of any of that) I figure the C level interview will be pretty final, either you impress them or annoy them, either way I can't see it requiring additional meetings after that

Still waiting for Company B to confirm a time/date for the second 'presentation' interview, I emailed them this morning to confirm I was ready with a solution

 

Beers and movie ! Nice they shud have that over here for the interview process, I am all for that.

If you should decide to move back to the U.K. and become a large boss for an I.T. company, this should be your interview technique - just the movies and beer.

Good luck!!

 

Where I'm working now the second interview was with the US team via VC - my equivalent and two 'regular' systems engineers. That was far less formal than the 'main' technical interview with my boss. The third interview was also with the US via VC - CTO and IT Director, and was also less formal than the UK equivalent. I guess the culture here is just more formal at the interview stage - because the working culture in the US is MUCH more formal than it is over here - its all you can do to crack a smile out of one of the US guys, whilst we laugh and joke in the office pretty much all the time. Also, my appraisal and probation review were both carried out over lunch and in the pub afterwards - the US guys appraisals are extremely formal and involve them putting in loads of work and sitting down talking for hours on end. Sod that for a game of soldiers!

 

good luck to you and you're two potential jobs. company a sounds as if you have already got the job.

 

Good luck to you Phoenix. Sounds very promising on all fronts. Let us know what the final score is!

 

Good luck and all the best!

 

Well I headed to SEA on Friday morning, caught the 6:50am Southwest flight out of BOI, nice all leather seat set up with plenty of leg room in a non exit row, very odd for me, got a beautiful view of sunrise over the Rockies as we came in to land a little over an hour later (quicker than my 12 mile commute in London)

Rental car company saw fit to give me this HUGE Ford Escape, which I was nervous as hell to drive, and was mocked by my future co workers as it's really not very large compared to other US behemoths (it was much bigger than my Focus though, lol)

The drive from SEA to Lacey was about 40 miles give or take, and even though we were going against traffic it was still pretty hectic heading through Tacoma on i5, its about 5 or 6 lanes (including a rather empty HOV lane) and some of the merging lanes have another 3 odd lanes, pretty big compared to what i'm used to

I made it in good time though, found my way without GPS to the office and bumped straight into the CTOs office, saved me having to look for some one to direct me. We chatted for a good few hours, he took me on the tour, had the CEO and some other techs join to get to know me a little and find out what I was made of, they seemed very pleased that I was 'well rounded' and could do stuff end to end without having to involve others. The idea was to head out to Lunch at some point, but we talked for so long we got a little side tracked and I ended up having to shoot back to Seattle for my 2pm flight out (I arrived at 8:40, left at 13:00, that's one hell of an interview)

I emailed the CTO that afternoon whilst sitting around at PDX (two leg return, lammmeee) to apologize for not gassing up the rental, I got a bit lost on the connectors linking I5 to the airport and ran out of time), he said not to worry and that he had enjoyed speaking to me and thought I would be a great addition to the team, he followed on by saying I should look forward to hearing from him early this week

Monday came and I was pretty nervous, pretty much spent the day by my computer waiting for an email, but nothing came, not to worry, early could mean Tuesday too. Today I did the same thing, but at about 3pm local time I was hunting around my AMEX statement to check I had paid it already and noticed a $173 charge from the rental company, not overly shocked at their ineptness I quickly fired off an email to the CTO and told him about the mix up (BIG mix up considering I have the reservation confirmation for the rental at $70ish), he said he would have someone his end look in to it and was sorry for the mix up, I also quickly dropped in a one liner and asked if he had spoke to the local office manager yet (something he had to do prior to offering me a job)

Well, whilst nothing is official yet, he replied that he was 'writing up my offer letter now and hopes to have it out by the end of the day'

Looks like I can start to breath easy and really get settled in to my new life here in the US
I'll tell you a bit more once everything is dotted and crossed, and then the obvious 3 day report
once I have the signed papers I will let company B know I'm no longer on the market

 

Congrats! Wave hi to Ft. Lewis for me as you pass.

 

Congratulations, Ryan! Looking good. I'll wait for the official offer and acceptance before I start doing the "happy dance"

 

Official offer was made today and I have accepted
back in full time employment, first time since May

Now I can put my first/last/deposit on my CC and not worry so much, lol time to move!

 

Congrats Ryan, good luck in the new venture.