Job Interviews

Remember howe I said that I had two callbacks, both temp agencies, and one in a city outside my own? Well, yesterday, I got two more. I got interviews from both, scheduled for today. I'm at the library right now, coming out from an interview at an organic restaurant and juice bar.

I think I did okay. This place is vegan, and, I'm not sure, but I think it might also be raw foodist. They put down that being a vegetarian or vegan is a plus, but that being generally health conscious and interested in the environment was also okay.

Unfortunately, I can't say that my experience in Katimavik contributed to me landing this position. I got it through a 2ndchance job search person. She didn't have my post-Katimavik resume at the time, so she sent my old one. The employer even tried to contact me by our old line, with no success. So my old resume was strong enough to land me this position.

If I get a job here, I'm going to rock the vegi-lifestyle again so hard. I tried to incorporate my vegetarian stance into the interview, but I don't know if I managed it smoothly. When she asked me to tell her about myself, I said that I had difficulty defining myself in such a short timeframe, but that one thing about me that would be relevant to the position is that I'm vegetarian. I'm new to it though, only about four months. I'm just coming out of a program where I traveled around Canada in a group of people, doing volunteer work, and in my group there was a person who had been vegetarian since she was six. It was difficult coming back to Guelph, being the only person I knew who was doing this, and that I think working in this place would be a good opportunity for me to learn, and it would be good to not be the only person with this lifestyle.

I should have said "I'm not vegan, but that is a step I'm interested in taking in the future" but I forgot.

See, that's not exactly a self-descriptive, and it may have been obvious I was looking for an opportunity to dump that. Also, if they get a lot of vegans, it might hurt that I made the admission that I'm merely vegetarian.

And yeah, I relapsed from the lifestyle and didn't put in the effort to point that out in the interview. Hey, there's no meat in me now!

Otherwise, she seemed pretty interested in my writing experience. I should have gone further into it than I did. I just basically recited what was on my resume. "Yeah, haha, that's kind of an odd thing about me that crops up every once in a while. It's true, I was a movie reviewer for an acting school in Vancouver, and the editor for a Sociology textbook for a University professor. Also, I've been asked to write an article for a newsletter for 2ndchance on an experience I had in Katimavik."

I should have said something about getting eleven writing course scholarships from that acting school. They may be invalid for now, and the school may have gone under somewhat, but I wouldn't need to point that out. I could have talked about blogging, or being the journalist for my Katimavik group, but I didn't think of that.

When she asked me to tell her my three greatest strengths, and when she asked me to say what was the biggest thing I learned about myself in Katimavik, I sort of waffled and said "Uh..." and "Um..." quite a bit. I'm not too proud of those sections of the interview, but at least I never failed to give a full answer.

When she asked if I had any questions, I couldn't think of any. That's bad, apparently.

She wants reference letters. I keep hearing that no employers care about reference letters anymore. I didn't even think to bring any. She said that's fine, I can just email them to her. I wonder what that says. Maybe that I'm not unconsiderable, but I haven't won out just yet, either. Also, maybe she's checking in on whether or not I'm legit. Maybe I'm an early applicant and she doesn't have a lot to weigh against me, so she's finding a way to weigh me against myself, but she'll fall into more comparitive methods once more applicants come around.

The positions I'm applied for are waiter and dishwasher. There was a food prep position I couldn't apply for because I don't have a full license. I should've fielded that in the interview, too. I think I'm applied for all three positions, so if she filled the other two and put me on food prep, I might be in trouble.

I didn't know how to dress. I considered wearing my full suit, but instead I decided just to take the pants, then wear a dress shirt and this sort of dress jacket. In the end, I looked as dressed up as if I were wearing the suit. I figured it was better to dress up than dress down, just to show that I was taking this seriously.

I'm wondering if I should go home and change for my second interview. That's for a factory job. I'll be being interviewed by office people, so maybe not quite as rough as if I were applying for people hiring direct from a position like that, but maybe a smidge more casual than I am right now.

This morning I got two more callbacks. I have another interview tomorrow at 1:00 PM. That's for another factory job, and it's a phone interview.

So, taking the first two callbacks, and then the two I have today, and the two I got this morning, that's six callbacks total. Very, very nice. I'm using the same method I used before, but instead of, like, two responses every year, I'm getting six per sendoff. But, as I said before, aty least three of these responses aren't all that impressive. Two of the agencies that called back have called me back before, and I got little out of them those times, and this interview I just came out of was based on my old resume, so it's more luck than any newly acquired credential.

I also got a flu shot yesterday, and I got my Karate uniform back with embroidery. It was almost the perfect day, but I failed to get my white stripe. I'm not allowed to have absolutely perfect days, but that came close enough.