Pride Cometh...
Jan. 20th, 2010 11:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magicaddict...before a fall.
I must have been really fucking proud to trip over like this.
Back in October, a project manager from our Change Management Division came round the local branches asking for feedback on our appointment booking system. Mostly, he got a not entirely positive response, and a lot of people telling him "this doesn't work fast when I push this button." I can only conclude that he was somewhat relieved by my bite of the cherry involving a list of shortcomings that summised to "this is why I think it's a piece of badly staged software, linked to our mainframe by a piece of wet string, that takes five times as long as it should to do half of it's job. Here's what I suggest to fix it."
He and I spent an hour and a half sitting at a computer playing with it, with my demonstrating where it wasn't intuitive, where workarounds had to be used to get through sections of it that simply didn't work, where screen refreshes could take up to 190 seconds to go through (yay for ping indexes of 190,000), and where I think this, this and this could be done to it to make it better. He asked to keep me in the loop during the course of the project he was managing, so I could reality check the ideas they came up with on behalf of the front end users.
Excellent, I thought.
At the same time, there was another member of CMD hanging around - a senior business analyst who lives in Bath and occasionally can't be bothered to drive to Swindon, so comes into the branch, goes upstairs and works from there. I got talking to him one lunchtime, and he commented that it was nice talking to someone on his level, rather than having to make sure what he says is understandable to the branch staff, and that he reckoned I'd make a great analyst.
So hire me, I said, jokingly.
No problem, he said. They're recruiting BAs right now - here's my manager's contact details, drop her a CV and we'll see what we can do.
Then, and genuinely separately, project manager guy invited me up to head office for a day to alpha test their new ABS software. He'd also show me round CMD and try and get me in on a business meeting.
Even more excellent, I thought.
He obviously wanted me to get to know CMD as much as possible, and I thought that could only be good for my prospects. We arranged it for Tuesday from 8am and I was all set to go and show them how well I could do as an analyst.
Monday morning, HR ring up, tell me the manager likes the look of my CV and ask me if I can make an interview for a Business Analyst position on...yup...Tuesday at 9am. For two hours.
Fuck, I thought.
Thankfully, project manager guy was extremely understanding, knew the interviewer well, was up for hanging fire for a couple of hours after going through the initial stuff at 8, and said he'd try to find out about the job so I could prime myself. He returned about forty minutes later with the complete list of competencies, full job description and pay schedule. Getting this job would involve my salary (quite literally) doubling.
If ever I was going to get an opportunity with things on my side, even if it was on hideously short notice, this was going to be it. I completed the online numerical and verbal reasoning tests that night, and got about four and a half hours sleep.
_____________
Prayers said,bribes monetary pledges to St Jude from the first paycheque duly offered, and keeping ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xanthipe's prosperity charm close to hand, I left Bath at 7am, allowing for the trip to take half as long again as it normally does. Imagine, then, my frustration when there was a three mile tailback to the Cold Ashton roundabout and come 7:45, I hadn't even made it as far as the M4. Imagine the further frustration when I queued all the way throught Wroughton and ended up arriving at 8:35.
Great start to the day.
Project manager guy decided it probably wasn't worth getting started before the interview, so I had about twenty minutes to get myself together before one of Nationwide's high-ranking business designers (the one project manager guy knows well) said hello, and led me into a two hour interview consisting of competency questions, a case study and the subsequent short presentation I had to make on it.
The following comprises a list of things you probably shouldn't do during an interview:
1. Tell the interviewer that a customer once bought you a wobbly pig.
2. Reveal that you learned everything you know about business analysis last night.
3. Imply to the interviewer that you thought the job involves something different to the description.
4. Make a presentation to the interviewers and forget to mention one of your pages.
5. Make a presentation to the interviewers and neglect to offer conclusions.
6. Leave your briefcase in the interview room and make them call you back to fetch it.
7. Mention in a light-hearted tone of voice that you were thirty-five minutes late for your first meeting this morning.
If the above weren't enough, the interviewer spent the rest of the day working across the aisle from where project manager guy and I were working on the alpha-test, and looking well pissed off with what he was doing. Made it so easy to concentrate, it really did.
Project manager guy was really pleased with how much we got through, and had arranged for two bottles of wine in appreciation of my turning up, but I'd happily have jacked it all in for not having made such an abject idiot of myself in an interview for a job that everyone and his dog knows I could do brilliantly at and get myself a real career at the same time.
Still, with so much going for me, despite such an appalling performance, I can't quite help but feel an inkling of hope. Would it be such an immense leap of faith to extend a job to someone you know could do it, and was helping your division with projects already, but whose interview technique wasn't firing on the day?
Probably, and yet...I don't know. Tevye said it best, as the Fiddler on the Roof watched him sing.
Lord, you made the lion and the lamb.
You decreed I should be what I am.
Would it spoil some vast, eternal plan...
...if I were a wealthy man?
I must have been really fucking proud to trip over like this.
Back in October, a project manager from our Change Management Division came round the local branches asking for feedback on our appointment booking system. Mostly, he got a not entirely positive response, and a lot of people telling him "this doesn't work fast when I push this button." I can only conclude that he was somewhat relieved by my bite of the cherry involving a list of shortcomings that summised to "this is why I think it's a piece of badly staged software, linked to our mainframe by a piece of wet string, that takes five times as long as it should to do half of it's job. Here's what I suggest to fix it."
He and I spent an hour and a half sitting at a computer playing with it, with my demonstrating where it wasn't intuitive, where workarounds had to be used to get through sections of it that simply didn't work, where screen refreshes could take up to 190 seconds to go through (yay for ping indexes of 190,000), and where I think this, this and this could be done to it to make it better. He asked to keep me in the loop during the course of the project he was managing, so I could reality check the ideas they came up with on behalf of the front end users.
Excellent, I thought.
At the same time, there was another member of CMD hanging around - a senior business analyst who lives in Bath and occasionally can't be bothered to drive to Swindon, so comes into the branch, goes upstairs and works from there. I got talking to him one lunchtime, and he commented that it was nice talking to someone on his level, rather than having to make sure what he says is understandable to the branch staff, and that he reckoned I'd make a great analyst.
So hire me, I said, jokingly.
No problem, he said. They're recruiting BAs right now - here's my manager's contact details, drop her a CV and we'll see what we can do.
Then, and genuinely separately, project manager guy invited me up to head office for a day to alpha test their new ABS software. He'd also show me round CMD and try and get me in on a business meeting.
Even more excellent, I thought.
He obviously wanted me to get to know CMD as much as possible, and I thought that could only be good for my prospects. We arranged it for Tuesday from 8am and I was all set to go and show them how well I could do as an analyst.
Monday morning, HR ring up, tell me the manager likes the look of my CV and ask me if I can make an interview for a Business Analyst position on...yup...Tuesday at 9am. For two hours.
Fuck, I thought.
Thankfully, project manager guy was extremely understanding, knew the interviewer well, was up for hanging fire for a couple of hours after going through the initial stuff at 8, and said he'd try to find out about the job so I could prime myself. He returned about forty minutes later with the complete list of competencies, full job description and pay schedule. Getting this job would involve my salary (quite literally) doubling.
If ever I was going to get an opportunity with things on my side, even if it was on hideously short notice, this was going to be it. I completed the online numerical and verbal reasoning tests that night, and got about four and a half hours sleep.
_____________
Prayers said,
xanthipe's prosperity charm close to hand, I left Bath at 7am, allowing for the trip to take half as long again as it normally does. Imagine, then, my frustration when there was a three mile tailback to the Cold Ashton roundabout and come 7:45, I hadn't even made it as far as the M4. Imagine the further frustration when I queued all the way throught Wroughton and ended up arriving at 8:35. Great start to the day.
Project manager guy decided it probably wasn't worth getting started before the interview, so I had about twenty minutes to get myself together before one of Nationwide's high-ranking business designers (the one project manager guy knows well) said hello, and led me into a two hour interview consisting of competency questions, a case study and the subsequent short presentation I had to make on it.
The following comprises a list of things you probably shouldn't do during an interview:
1. Tell the interviewer that a customer once bought you a wobbly pig.
2. Reveal that you learned everything you know about business analysis last night.
3. Imply to the interviewer that you thought the job involves something different to the description.
4. Make a presentation to the interviewers and forget to mention one of your pages.
5. Make a presentation to the interviewers and neglect to offer conclusions.
6. Leave your briefcase in the interview room and make them call you back to fetch it.
7. Mention in a light-hearted tone of voice that you were thirty-five minutes late for your first meeting this morning.
If the above weren't enough, the interviewer spent the rest of the day working across the aisle from where project manager guy and I were working on the alpha-test, and looking well pissed off with what he was doing. Made it so easy to concentrate, it really did.
Project manager guy was really pleased with how much we got through, and had arranged for two bottles of wine in appreciation of my turning up, but I'd happily have jacked it all in for not having made such an abject idiot of myself in an interview for a job that everyone and his dog knows I could do brilliantly at and get myself a real career at the same time.
Still, with so much going for me, despite such an appalling performance, I can't quite help but feel an inkling of hope. Would it be such an immense leap of faith to extend a job to someone you know could do it, and was helping your division with projects already, but whose interview technique wasn't firing on the day?
Probably, and yet...I don't know. Tevye said it best, as the Fiddler on the Roof watched him sing.
Lord, you made the lion and the lamb.
You decreed I should be what I am.
Would it spoil some vast, eternal plan...
...if I were a wealthy man?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-01-22 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 07:36 am (UTC)I got a job once and my boss later said that it wasn't completely on interview. It was more for the fact that I completely failed to work out how the doors worked (one of those ones that you buzz up for - could I figure out which one it was? And was is pull? Push?) In the end, someone came down to let me in. I just said 'shall I go home now?'
I got the job because I had a sense of humour about the situation. So all is Not Yet Lost!
~S~
no subject
Date: 2010-01-22 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 10:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-22 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 10:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-22 12:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 12:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-22 12:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-22 12:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 01:10 pm (UTC)I don't think it's really that much of a stretch.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-22 12:17 am (UTC)We will wait and see.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 01:11 pm (UTC)PJW
no subject
Date: 2010-01-22 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 08:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-22 12:18 am (UTC)