I quickly scanned the small reception room and confirmed once again that I was overdressed. Men and women dressed in a mix of dress shirts and sneakers, jeans or if dressed in a suit, it was two sizes too big. This is not what I had expected the interview for the “important” job to look like. In fact, I wasn’t expecting to see a room full of people. I started to panic. What is this really?? There had to have been at least thirty people in the room and one lady even brought her children. Surely, they couldn’t be interviewing for a job here. I ran every possible scenario in my head of what this situation could really mean. One stood out to me.
“These people are here for an appointment to meet with a manager or a higher level executive. The manager will emerge ,dressed in a well tailored suit and whisk them away to an air conditioned office where their issues will be addressed” .
Yep, that was what I chose to believe and I stuck to it. A loud voice interrupted my thoughts.
” Ma’am , can I help you?”
I turned to the direction the voice was coming from and saw a woman behind a glass partition. I walked to the window and told her that I was here for an interview.
” Sign in here and have a seat somewhere”.
I looked at the sign in sheet and flipped over to the other sheet since the first page was filled with names and phone numbers. I signed my name and number in the fifth spot. At the top of the page, the words ” INTERVIEW SIGN IN” was in bold letters. Then it hit me. These casually dressed people were actually there for an interview as well.
Next scenario: “ Maybe, we are not interviewing for the same job“.
Sigh.
After signing my name, I scanned the room again for a seat. There was one left in the corner. I sat down and noticed that the gentleman sitting next to me was reading with a kindle. I looked at my watch. It was 9 AM. I checked my phone for text messages and turned off my ringer. I took a moment to make some observations. I think some of them may have misunderstood what business casual is. It does not mean wearing a dress shirt with Jordans and it certainly does not mean wearing a skirt short enough to show your leg tattoos and sporting multi colored weave. But I digress. We may not be interviewing for the same job.
At 9:20 AM, a man resembling Katt Williams stepped out from the back door and announced that interviews will begin in 15 minutes. We will not be allowed to use our cell phones and that he will be calling us in by groups. After the announcement, a young lady turned to me and asked me if I applied for the job from the newspaper.
“Uhm, no. I found the job online” I said.
” Oh okay” she responded and turned back to her cell phone. She looked like she was in high school. Had she applied for the same job as me? It was in the newspaper? We must not have applied for the same job. Or maybe we did? Concern level now was at least a nine on scale of one to ten.
At 9:40 AM, the Katt Williams look alike emerged from the backroom and started calling names. He called my name and about 15 others and lead us into the back room which had a set of cubicles with computers. He told us to find a cubicle and that we would be taking a 15 minute skills assessment. As I took my seat at the computer, once again, I was running scenarios through my head.We were told that parts of the assessment were timed. I turned on the monitor and clicked on the “TAKE ASSESSMENT” tab. I filled out the brief questionnaire and started the first part of the assessment which was a typing test.
“This should be easy ” I scoffed, mentally. A graduate student who has written their fair share of research papers has mastered the the art of typing. We had to retype a small passage a quickly as possible in a minute. I typed a quickly as I could with few typos.
The second part of the assessment was more of a questionnaire describing the job itself. It was more of a ” are you willing to do this or that? Yes or No” type questionnaire. Most of the questions seemed pretty reasonable enough. “Is the customer always right? Yes or No?” I answered Yes since “sometimes” was not an option. But as l answered the remaining questions, I started to get more concerned.
“This job involves talking to over 100 customers a day who might be irate or verbally offensive. Do you think you can handle this level of stress? Yes or No?” , “You will be required to wear a headset for long periods of time while documenting customer complaints. Are you okay with this? Yes or No? “, ” This position requires you to deal with issue resolution that can be high stressful. Can you do this? Yes or No”. This job pays only X.00 an hour. This is a flat rate with no negotiation for pay despite your level of education? Do you accept this? Yes or No ?”
I answered every question in the affirmative. Before I answered each question, I hesitated. I kept thinking “well, what are my options? I don’t have a job right now and anything will do. But hey, what if this is just a questionnaire everyone has to take. I am sure once they see my resume, they will offer me a much better job than this.”
Or not.
After the test, I was asked to go back to the reception area. The receptionist told me that the second part of the interviewing process will be in two hours.
Two hours!! What am I supposed to do til then?
Stay tuned for part three.
Have a great day.
Ms. MBA
The Musings of a Job Seeking MBA 