Wow. I just returned from my latest interview, and it went a lot better than I had any right to hope it would. I've been fretting since Friday when they called to make the appointment. As I've mentioned before, my technical skills are not exactly a perfect match, so I was certain that it was going to be an embarrassing barrage of questions that I couldn't answer.
Instead, they were interested in probing my customer support skills, and were very receptive to what I had to say. The more I spoke to them, the more excited I got. They liked the breadth of experience I could bring to the position, and the fact that I obviously have some experience dealing with irate and irrational users (in particular, they seemed to enjoy my use of the term "triage" for the inevitable case of dealing with more than one at a time, and that it's better (when possible) to give people waiting something to do (something to try) so they're not sitting on their thumb (stewing in the case of the irrational user)).
And it's quite a bit more of a challenge than I originally thought. I would be responsible for keeping the IT infrastructure for a few different offices running, and eventually responsible for mentoring and coaching new administrators in some fo those offices. It'd be a great challenge. And there's some travel involved.
I've been applying to this job since July. I'm now one of 3 candidates, out of an initial cast of thousands. Every step of the way, I've had the same moment. "Well, this sounds good, but I'm not going to make the next cut." Going in today, I was certain that I would come out beaten. When I left, I felt good. I said to myself, "I may not make the final cut, but at least I know that it's because they chose a better candidate, not because I couldn't do the job." It was a great feeling. I figure I'll know by February, if their past track record has been any indication.
