Thursday, March 21, 2013

The (never ending?) Job Search: Part 2!

If you haven't yet read part 1, I would advise you go do that now. Otherwise the story I'm about to relay won't make nearly as much sense, if any at all.

Read it?

Good, now I'll continue.

So I took a bus back from New York Saturday morning, December 8th (made me really appreciate the flight there! Yay Jet Blue!) and the next few days were essentially filled solely with studying for Auditing and Accounting. I didn't really check my email, just focused on studying. At that point I figured what's done is done and I'm in yet another waiting game anyways.

When I finally emerge from the library and all of my exams I begin the anxious waiting period. For the first time in months I had no interviews lined up. It was simply waiting, waiting, waiting. At this point I had gone through nearly 20 interviews (the CA interview was not the only one I had during the two weeks we had been back since Thanksgiving). While at the beginning I tried to gauge how well interviews had gone, I was pretty much over that. The whole process had become almost a game (probably not good to admit, but it's the truth).

It wasn't about finding a place I could do the job; if that's all it was I would have a job offer from probably everywhere I applied. Now, to be fair, I still took the job search seriously. It was still a stressful endeavor. But I was more lighthearted about it; I tried to have some fun with it.

On Thursday (the 13th) CA emails me back...as I read the email I start to get all giddy. Remember, this is probably the most interesting company I applied to for a rotation. I was really excited...because I had been moved up to the second round!

[insert sigh of relief here]

Once again they have a series of dates for me to choose from...all in January. Ok, I think. This is manageable. They start in the first week of January, so I can do the interview before I head off to Ghana. Then I just have to hope there's no important correspondence while I'm out of touch with the world and we'll be all set. Perfect!

Jokes, life is never that simple.

At this point we are into winter break. Ghana is just three weeks away. Sarina is having visa issues so she comes to my house until she can secure her visa. We spend the days hanging out, catching up on NCIS, cooking, the usual for us. And then:

11:57am, Monday December 17, 2012
I get an email from one of the companies I had interviewed with asking if I had any free time for a phone call over the next couple of days. 

12:00pm, Monday December 17, 2012
Of course! I reply, I have nothing but time. 

~12:30pm, Monday December 17, 2012
My phone rings.
It's the recruiter from Braver PC (http://thebravergroup.com/)
I begin to pace as Sarina watches nervously.
I hang up.

I got the job!

At this point I'm shaking and teary eyed, all excited and such. But I have to keep calm. I have emails to send and people to call. Everyone's been waiting for this moment for months now.

1:00pm, Monday December 17, 2012
I take a seat and a deep breath. Success!

I had emailed every company I could recall that I still had open interviews with, including CA, explaining my situation. So I was now, once again in a waiting game. I had to see what other offers would come in, what companies would decide to just make a cut, and if CA could move the interview process forward any.

~3:00pm, Monday December 17, 2012
My phone rings.
It's the recruiter from another company I had interviewed with.
At this point I'm right in the middle of something so I have them call me back in half an hour.

~3:30pm, Monday December 17, 2012
My phone rings again.
It's the recruiter again.
Offering me a job.

In three and a half hours I had gone from no job offers to two. Yay! Wonderful!

Except (of course there's an except!) they both want an answer by December 31st. 

My interview with CA is scheduled for January 7th. It would be incredibly gutsy of me at this point to reject both offers hoping that I would get the offer from CA before even going for the interview. It would be incredibly rude and senseless of me to back out of the CA interview considering how much I had fought for the first interview and how much I was impressed by the company. So what's a girl to do?

It's more of that waiting game. Throughout the coming days I hear back from everyone I emailed. For simplicity, let's just imagine we have three companies that we're dealing with.

CA responds. They can move the interview as early as January 2nd. That's something. But not quite what I was hoping. So now I need to make a decision. I can try bargaining on time with the other two, accept one of the other two, or reject both of the other two.

I email Braver for an extension, and get an explanation of how they do offers on a rolling basis as they find candidates they like until they have filled all of their spots. He agrees to extend my deadline until they are ready to make an offer that would fill their final spot. Seeing as they can't predict if people will accept or how quickly people will accept, they can't really guarantee how long I have. But I figure I can at least get through the CA interview no problem. Then maybe I'll have decided I really like the idea of a rotation more than Audit/Tax that I'd do at Braver or the other company, or I really won't like it?

At this point it's December 21st. Quite the whirlwind of a month! And I still have to decide what to do about the other company. I decide to take a few days to mull everything over. I focus on Christmas, and figuring out how I'm going to get to my interview in New York (this time on Long Island).

And so I leave you yet another cliff hanger...

No comments:

Post a Comment