Battle Cry

As I mentioned previously, I am currently unemployed.  Friday, I received a call from a Recruiter with Office Team, who wanted to meet with me to talk about possible positions they might have that are a match for my skills.  I am an HR Manager.  I like to think I help people with their benefits and compensation.  The unfavorable part of my job is that I am involved company policy enforcement, discipline measures, and sometimes separation from the company.  Anyway, today I went to meet Kelly the Recruiter.  My appointment was for 10am.  I decided with the rain and the traffic in this area (2nd in the nation to Los Angeles), I'd better give myself plenty of time.  The distance to drive according to MapQuest was 14 miles.  I left my house at 8:30.  The traffic in this area is like fighting a battle, I go into combat mode with eyes in the back of my head.  I feel like my head must spin in 360 degrees to change lanes, watch out for the construction and the truckers, merging traffic, careful of the blind spots, everywhere there is traffic - battle cry.  Surprisingly, no accidents or major traffic snarles.  Traffic was slow but moving, thankfully.  I arrived at 9:10 in the parking garage.

Yay, my first picture uploaded to this blog, a major accomplishment!  I took this picture with my cell phone in the parking garage facing the building where I was interviewing.  Don't worry, now I got the hang of this, my pictures should get better...I hope.

I sat in my car until 9:45.  The wind had picked up.  The radio said there was a Tornado Watch in effect (in February?!!).  I made my way to the building and into the elevator arriving at Office Team at 9:50.  I mentioned to the receptionist that I had a 10am meeting with Kelly.  I was asked to sign in and given a clipboard with an application and assortment of additional papers.  Once the paperwork was completed, the receptionist informed me I would be taking a Micosoft Excel and Word tests.  "Didn't Kelly mention the tests to you?"  I have test taking anxiety, I panic...panic set in "No, she didn't mention any tests" I said.  I had to calm down, telling myself, whatever happens I'm no worse off than before I walked in, what do I have to lose?

The tests lasted about 45 minutes.  The Word test took me through exercises of how to cut and paste, open a mail merge, save a file, rename a file, insert a table, change table margins and column widths, stuff like that.  The Excel tests was someone similar except with Excel functions like adding the sum of numbers, creating new worksheets, copying worksheets, inserting charts into a spreadsheet.  Both were pretty basic stuff, I started to relax, I had the hang of it!  Once I completed, the receptionist said she notified Kelly I was "ready".

Kelly asked me about where I would consider working (I'm in a large metropolitan area), what rate I would accept, and would I consider temp assignments.  I asked a few questions about length of the assignment, would they all be temp or some temp to permanent.  After we agreed on the information she asked, she said she would be in touch with me.  If there is anyone out there job hunting, you know these are dreaded words.  "I'll be in touch when something comes up for you."  Basically, unless you spend your time hounding the Recruiters, you never hear from them.  The last one called me January 24th.  I've called her three times to hear if their client that I phone interviewed with has made a candidate selction decision.  She responded "not yet, I'll let you know when I hear something."  Tomorrow is March 1st, any bets that the candidate selcted has probably already started working for their client?  For the most part, my experience with recruiters are zip/zero/nada.  At least the tests and the interview gave me more interview practice.

Back to my car and the sky was darkening, like there was really a tornado coming, remember the Wizard of Oz?  I paid my $3.00 parking fee, headed out anxious to get home.  I no sooner got out of the parking garage and the sky opened up, here comes the rain, remember, we're still having high winds too, the kind where you have to fight the steering wheel to keep the car in the lane.  I put the wipers on high and made sure my headlights were on (still from manuevering around the parking garage).  Made it home, with a big sigh of relief.  Today was a battle of traffic and nerves, with a few breaths of panic, not the best of views.