shattered

Well, I'm back at work after my whirlwind tour of interviews.

Okay, there were only 2 interviews, but it's left me drained.  I say that, but the drained feeling may be something to do with waking up at 4AM this morning and being unable to get back to sleep (to the extent I go bored and watched some recorded TV instead).

I mean I blame the interviews for the lack of sleep anyway - it's all been quite disruptive to my routines, to say the least.

Anyway, point is I had two interviews.  One was in Sutton, which is in London... or Surrey.  It was a bit confusing, to be honest, as their address said Surrey, but maps say it's Greater London and there were all these London 2012 banners up like in the rest of London.

I mention this mainly because it would have to be a serious consideration for taking the job.  I've always tried to avoid big cities and London in particular.  I'm just not a fan of places without lots of green and gaps between the houses.  However, Sutton actually seemed quite green - there were a couple of parks close by and there were a surprising number of trees.

It was quite... multi-culturally.  I'm not saying that in a racist way, it's just it's quite a shift from where I am currently and again backs up the idea of it being London, rather than Surrey.

Anyway, the interview went well, I felt.  Indeed it went better than I was expecting.  I'd been a bit put off with how they'd treated me in arranging the interview.  There does appear to be a reason for that to some degree in that this job is to replace someone who leaves very soon.  Most of the other jobs appear to be newly created.

It was also a bit more senior than I was expecting - I would have an assistant (blimey!).  To be honest it became clear to me I'd gotten a bit confused as to which job it was.  The problem is most of these jobs have identical descriptions and I had forgotten this was for one of the few that was slightly different.

The focus of the role wouldn't be writing the reviews as such, but more doing Quality Control of them and helping to maintain a bid library - that sort of thing.

As I say, the interview went well, but I'd have to think long and hard about whether I want to move to London (or closer to London, anyway).

The second interview was almost the flip-side of that.  Where the first one I went in thinking it wouldn't be for me but then coming out thinking maybe it would, this second one I went in thinking this is where I want to go and came out thinking perhaps not.

Part of the issue in both cases were the people.  In the first the person who'd got my back up was actually HR and wasn't anything to do with the interview itself.  In the second the issue was more like the top boss was on my side, but the top colleague was not keen.

The second interview was in Cambridge, which I have a little familiarity with.  It's obviously a lot more pleasant a place than London, but I understand it's about as expensive; housing wise in particular.

The real problem with it is that it's quite technical and this guy pounced on the fact I didn't know anything about that technical area.  He also seemed to not quite get the fact that I want to go in that direction - my point that I wanted to go in that direction, but appreciated I'd be coming in cold / from scratch and would need to learn everything seemed to be a real stumbling block.

Now as I say I always thought it would be, but I dunno, it was like he didn't believe me.  It was also a little annoying in that they both asked the same questions one after the other - like the second guy hadn't listened to what I'd said.

However I've just heard they want to do a second interview.  Well, I say interview - it sounds more like they want to give me a test about the technical area, so I need to learn about it.

I have to say I'm not that impressed by this - okay, it's a weakness, but I'm left a little puzzled as to what they're trying to achieve by doing it.  I'm hardly going to become an expert in a short amount of time.

I mean, the first interview wants me to take some online test things, but that's okay, because they're of a more general nature.