Whew. At Least That's Over

Today was my anticipated first call in for an interview with a head hunter. Well, the call in wasn't what had me worried like the damn testing they wanted to do on me. This was not a stellar day in oh so many ways.

I didn't get much sleep last night, mostly due to my nerves. I ended up on the couch watching TV and finally napped there for awhile in the early morning hours. I was so tired today!

My appointment was originally scheduled at 11:00 am. A little side note here, Phil has been in Erie this past week. When Ron came home yesterday, he parked in the driveway to do a little work on his van. He ended up leaving the van right there in the driveway since Phil was gone and he thought no one else would need the drive way.

I went to leave this morning just after 10:00 am and I jumped into the van so I could move it to the back and guess what? The van had a battery that couldn't have been any deader! There was not one amp, ohm, spark or whatever in its body. My first thought was "shit". True story. That was my first thought. My second thought was that this was my out. I didn't want to go anyway. So there. Phht.

I came back in the house and upstairs to tell Ron about his van. Heaven love him, his first thought was maybe he could push the van out of my way so I could get out! For real? PUSH the van? While I appreciated his can-do attitude, I said to him that I am not meant to go to this appointment at this moment. I firmly believe something bad would have happened to me had I forced the issue and had him push the van or if I drove out over the yard instead of down the driveway, something bad would have happened. The worst part about this is I was really have a great hair day! Trust me, that doesn't happen often!

So, I call my contact and explain my unusual situation. I'm still thinking of just cancelling at this moment but instead just asked for an extension. I rescheduled for 2:00 pm and hoped like heck that Ron could get his van started and moved in that time. Sure enough, the second time was the charm.

I actually found my way there in plenty of time.

First order of business was filling out 27 gabillion forms. From an I-9 to a W-4 to a skills evaluation and my favorite, the repeat of everything on my resume. Once all that was filled out, I had to step into the computer room where a PC had been set up just for me with an accounts payable test and an excel test. Ok, I was as ready as I could be.

I started with the A/P test. I think there was like 37 questions, and I had 30 minutes to complete it. The good thing is that as soon as I submitted an answer, it told me immediately if I was right or wrong. That was kind of cool. I thought I breezed through ok, missing about five of them. More on that later!

The excel test was really easy until they got to the graphs and charts section. I got lucky on a couple of them as they were pure guesses and just flubbed the rest. Out of 50 questions, about 15 were about graphs and charts. I've never used them so I knew this would be my down fall.

After an hour of testing, I was called in for the face to face. He asked me how he thought I did and I told him that I missed a few in A/P that I didn't agree with their answers. I told him I think his questions are dated and in today's market, with all of the changes in A/P, some of those things just never happen. I've spent the last six years educating companies on Best Practices and trust me, some of their answers were no longer considered Best Practices.

So, I argued my point with him and I'm not sure I got brownie points for that or not. I did find out though that the national average on this test was a 68% and I scored an 84%. He was totally impressed with my score, but I feel that at least two questions I got wrong would really have made that number a lot better! Oh well.

As for Excel, that national average was 70% and I scored a 74%. He was happy about that as all the questions I missed were about the graphs and charts and I said I've never worked with them. He felt that few companies asked for this expert level on Excel and my intermediate level was more than adequate.

So, I guess I tested better than I thought I would. He felt confident that he could do something for me, but in this economy I still have my doubts. But, here's hoping.

So there. I lived through my first interview in a long time. Thanks to my good friend, Maura, I always thought I was pretty good at interviewing. Here's hoping I am ready and this little practice will make perfect on the interview that will really count; the one that lands me a job. A girl has to have a dream after all.