Friday's Interview

[yankeeyosh]

The last couple of days have sealed the deal. A sympathetic coworker, who is thinking of quitting himself, told me yesterday that my boss, apparently, is an "opportunist" who gives no credit to her subordinates. For instance...she would no qualms about telling people that stuff like the tropical cyclone discussions I've been typing up...the only thing that gives me any sense of dignity and the only thing I can still put any heart into...are her own, even though she has no background in meteorology. I pray she isn't doing this, but she has been adamant in telling me not to send discussions to the vice president of the property department unless he's on vacation...she would forward them to him. As a result, I'm a bit concerned about this (fortunately, she's forgot to tell me in the last couple of days to stop sending them...so I'm still sending them...although I'm sensing that all in all, he really doesn't care).

Also, it was confirmed that if I stay at this job one more month or ten more years, my role will never change. The only way I can move up is to take my boss's position, and I don't think she's going anywhere fast (not that I'd want it, really). One of the people was there two and a half years, and his work never varied...pretty much all cleaning spreadsheets and simple model runs...needless to say, he's long gone. I don't think I have that patience at this point.

Moreover, I am now in the middle of another monthly 300-spreadsheet-in-four-day-cleanup-athon...which is a horrible waste of time and energy. Furthermore, the beginning of ANY modeling I would actually do has been pushed back ANOTHER two weeks...closer to the six month anniversary. I have a hunch it will be pushed back even further.

The guy sitting next to me at work warned me that they're taking advantage of me and suggested I take the actuarial route, and seek something in that (although I said I tried that already to no avail). Others feel sympathetic that all I'm doing is spreadsheet cleanup...even though there's nothing they can do to help. So it's clear that people know that this has been a bad experience.

I will pay someone ten dollars if they can come up with a good reason why I shouldn't look for another job. And don't use the "job hopping" reason, because that won't work.

That said...as some of you know, I have a final interview on Friday with a small financial modeling company. The work would provide me the challenge I want, in a less corporate environment...perfect for me.

The thing is, I would like to know the best way to explain why I've been leaving or wanting all these jobs recently after just a few months (although one was involuntary). I know from first hand accounts...including many on QLC...that job hopping is NOT the worst thing that can happen, and many indeed get much better positions in the end. So even though there are some of you who think I'm "entitled", I certainly don't. I just think that the best way to handle this is simply discuss how I am not being challenged, and would be loyal to a company that would offer me the opportunity to get that challenge I desire.

More importantly, although I feel I am certainly qualified for this (it doesn't even require a master's degree or much experience...just good, raw quantitative intelligence and being a graduate of a top-tier college), I always have in the back of my mind this fear that there are a million 22 year olds fresh out of college who are just simply better than me...more "experience"...interview better...are better schmoozers...are more "handsome" or "pretty"...and that like what always happens, I'll get the short end of the stick. How do I try not to get psyched out by this fear? I know I made it to the final round of interview DESPITE being 20 minutes late for the interview and a bit frazzled...so that says something, but I still know there are three or four "unknowns" that are also in the same boat I am. I almost have this sense of defeatism...like I'm bound to fail in any attempt to improve myself. Since this is a "geek" job, I might have a better shot than in a "corporate" setting. Still, I don't know how to get over the hump, and to conquer this fear. Any advice?

[Tenshi28]

The thing is, I would like to know the best way to explain why I've been leaving or wanting all these jobs recently after just a few months (although one was involuntary). I know from first hand accounts...including many on QLC...that job hopping is NOT the worst thing that can happen, and many indeed get much better positions in the end. So even though there are some of you who think I'm "entitled", I certainly don't. I just think that the best way to handle this is simply discuss how I am not being challenged, and would be loyal to a company that would offer me the opportunity to get that challenge I desire.

My opinion is, that's exactly what you should do. It's not like you have something to hide, just come out and tell them about your situation, what you expected from the job and how it's not fulfilling and challenging at all. Any interviewer with a minimum of common sense should see that you're just doing the right thing looking for another job.

More importantly, although I feel I am certainly qualified for this (it doesn't even require a master's degree or much experience...just good, raw quantitative intelligence and being a graduate of a top-tier college), I always have in the back of my mind this fear that there are a million 22 year olds fresh out of college who are just simply better than me...more "experience"...interview better...are better schmoozers...are more "handsome" or "pretty"...and that like what always happens, I'll get the short end of the stick. How do I try not to get psyched out by this fear? I know I made it to the final round of interview DESPITE being 20 minutes late for the interview and a bit frazzled...so that says something, but I still know there are three or four "unknowns" that are also in the same boat I am. I almost have this sense of defeatism...like I'm bound to fail in any attempt to improve myself. Since this is a "geek" job, I might have a better shot than in a "corporate" setting. Still, I don't know how to get over the hump, and to conquer this fear. Any advice?

I think you have proven in the past that you can find new jobs rather easily, so although it's perfectly understandable that you're nervous about it, there's no real reason why you should let your pessimism get the best out of you.

[allie1105]

First of all - I think that the company you are interviewing with seems to be much more in line with your interests. From what you have described as their environment, you would enjoy working there.

Second of all, how long were you at your last job? I rememeber you posting a thread with your resume, but I can't remember how long. If I am correct, you spent about 2 years there? Anyway, you can always say that at your last job, you were looking to move on and take your career to a new level (more challenges) and so you chose the job with your current company. You can then say that you were mislead by the job description, and tell them the jist of what you do now. Then, say that you don't want your valuable skills to get "rusty" so you have decided to start your job search again.

I think you have a lot great qualities and an excellent resume, even if you don't think so. If I were a hiring manager who interviewed you and saw your resume, I would conclude that you are still looking for what makes you happy...and there is nothing wrong with that!

[yankeeyosh]

Second of all, how long were you at your last job? I rememeber you posting a thread with your resume, but I can't remember how long. If I am correct, you spent about 2 years there? Anyway, you can always say that at your last job, you were looking to move on and take your career to a new level (more challenges) and so you chose the job with your current company. You can then say that you were mislead by the job description, and tell them the jist of what you do now. Then, say that you don't want your valuable skills to get "rusty" so you have decided to start your job search again.


I was at my previous job only 4+ months. I knew there was no future there...I went to grad school to AVOID working in that industry again...and it was only temporary. I just didn't want to stay home all day and sulk, and I needed to pay bills. The job before that lasted a grand total of 11 weeks, simply because I got fired by a cowardly, aloof ogre who spewed lies and stories, and who had not a modicum of decency in his black heart. Before that, my jobs all lasted 1-2.75 years...so a bit more stable "loyalty-wise".

[cheshrcarol]

I think when they ask why you want to leave, just tell them that your job duties are not what they led you to believe you'd be doing, and that there is no opportunity to work in an area more appropriate to your interests and skills. Also make sure to tell them that your goal is to work with a company like them that you can grow your career with.

[lonestar]

Don't worry about the competition...there is always somebody out there who can do something better than you...this is true for everyone. But you probably can do somethign else better than that person...so it all evens out in the end. Just do your personal best and let the rest take care of itself...the only problem you would have is if you don't do your best, and then you could blame yourself for falling down.

Why did you give up on the actuarial route (though I don't see how it relates to your academic pursuits and job desires you expressed earlier)?

[yankeeyosh]

Why did you give up on the actuarial route (though I don't see how it relates to your academic pursuits and job desires you expressed earlier)?

It was always my backup plan...and I've went on a million interviews all over the country, just to get rejected from them all, essentially.

Welp...tomorrow's the day. I still have little confidence that this will work out. There's always someone better than me. But I gotta give it my best shot...

[lonestar]

No offense, but that attitude shines through dude...it may be affecting your interviewing skills. Be confident!

I have an interview with Farmers Insurance next Thursday as a catastrophe claims representative...pretty wild stuff but decent money because they give you a company car, phone laptop, and $150/day travel stipend on top of your base...plus overtime.

[yankeeyosh]

No offense, but that attitude shines through dude...it may be affecting your interviewing skills. Be confident!

I know, but after a less-than-5% success rate with interviews, it starts to eat at you.


I have an interview with Farmers Insurance next Thursday as a catastrophe claims representative...pretty wild stuff but decent money because they give you a company car, phone laptop, and $150/day travel stipend on top of your base...plus overtime.

Good luck :)

[spokes]

dude don't worry about the job-hopping thing, if assked why you want to leave acme industries say something positive about your expereince there, but be honest and say that the job was not what you were lead to believe.....now adays you need to take care of yourself.

for the life of me i am trying to figure out how you clean so many spreadhseets, i mean is there an army of monekeys in the back room cranking out these spreadsheets......

[lonestar]

dirty, dirty spreadsheets... :redface:

I kinda do the same thinking but it is more like checking mathmatical accuracy on statements and other accounting source documents...sort of like "cleaning" the books (?)

[allie1105]

Good luck today, Mark! You got this one :)

[yankeeyosh]

for the life of me i am trying to figure out how you clean so many spreadhseets, i mean is there an army of monekeys in the back room cranking out these spreadsheets......

We have about twenty underwriters who each collect data from a bunch of brokers, all of whom have their own spreadsheet designs. The brokers send the data to the underwriters who in turn send them to us to clean and model. Then, we send the results back to the underwriters, who finally send it back to the brokers. Really efficient system :neutral:


dirty, dirty spreadsheets...

I kinda do the same thinking but it is more like checking mathmatical accuracy on statements and other accounting source documents...sort of like "cleaning" the books (?)

All I do is add a bunch of columns together...and extract construction/occupancy/year of construction/number of floors data and place them in appropriate columns. Over and over and over and over again.


Good luck today, Mark! You got this one


Thanks :)

Time to hit the 128! Let's see what happens...

[pisces2473]

dirty, dirty spreadsheets... :redface:

I kinda do the same thinking but it is more like checking mathmatical accuracy on statements and other accounting source documents...sort of like "cleaning" the books (?)
As long as no one's "cooking" the books, all is good. :razz:

Good luck Mark!

[PenforPrez]

Good luck today, Mark. :) *crosses fingers*

[lonestar]

We have about twenty underwriters who each collect data from a bunch of brokers, all of whom have their own spreadsheet designs. The brokers send the data to the underwriters who in turn send them to us to clean and model. Then, we send the results back to the underwriters, who finally send it back to the brokers. Really efficient system :neutral:



All I do is add a bunch of columns together...and extract construction/occupancy/year of construction/number of floors data and place them in appropriate columns. Over and over and over and over again.


If you are still in this job in a month or so (and I hope that you get the new one), why not try and work your way into underwriting? If you stick it out for the rest of the year plus, maybe you can indicate to other superiors or network with the underwriting team supervisor/manager and try and get a spot there. I have done that before...just get to know the other guy well (maybe sit for the so called 'informational interview') and see what it takes to be an underwriter?

[grneyedmustang]

Good luck, Mark!!!!

[yankeeyosh]

Well, I had the interview.

For the most part, it went well. All the logical and programming problems, I was able to solve with little or no assistance. Then came the final set of interviews. The first two problems that set gave were fine. But the final question...which wasn't mathematical at all...just a simple problem of how to troubleshoot something, I totally botched....as I was thinking that the answer was an algorithm...only that it really was just common sense. The interviewer who asked me this (who ironically was named Mark himself) was getting very agitated...there was miscommunication between us (I didn't understand his meaning "input", and he got really angry and said that he told me "five times already"), and he started saying that a "three year old should know the answer". I felt like crying then, but didn't...however, I'm crying now. I totally fucked it up, and I know I'm not going to get this job...something that would have been perfect for me. I will be stuck in dead end jobs forever, and I just see no hope for the future anymore. :cry:

[spokes]

first off it sounds like the interviewer was a little on the unprofessional side, and while I cna understand his agitation, he should also undersatand that he is going to be dealing with people whoa re a little nervous.

on the flip side other applicants could have botched all the stuff you did well on.

try and take somethig positive away from your experience.

[yankeeyosh]

first off it sounds like the interviewer was a little on the unprofessional side, and while I cna understand his agitation, he should also undersatand that he is going to be dealing with people whoa re a little nervous.

on the flip side other applicants could have botched all the stuff you did well on.

try and take somethig positive away from your experience.

That's not the point...there is always something that messes it up. I just cannot interview well since I'm not a good "schmoozer", and until I find someone who's sympathetic to that, I will never have any success in the workforce.

[sondra_finchley]

I can sympathize- Im a horrible shmoozer with people I dont know or have just met. I think its a respect thing and how I was brought up. It drives me mad to no end when I see people who are totally inept in positions over their heads simply because they were good schmoozers.

The last interviewer- what was his position in relation to the position for which they were hiring? He WAS the last one of the day, after all that you went through. Is that problem something you would have to know on a daily basis? Just dont send that letter- you never know how the others did, or if they will hire based on consensus, or how the others on the committee may feel about this Mark character. Bide your time and chalk it up to experience and something to laugh about later once you get that dream job.

[yankeeyosh]

I can sympathize- Im a horrible shmoozer with people I dont know or have just met. I think its a respect thing and how I was brought up. It drives me mad to no end when I see people who are totally inept in positions over their heads simply because they were good schmoozers.

The last interviewer- what was his position in relation to the position for which they were hiring? He WAS the last one of the day, after all that you went through. Is that problem something you would have to know on a daily basis? Just dont send that letter- you never know how the others did, or if they will hire based on consensus, or how the others on the committee may feel about this Mark character. Bide your time and chalk it up to experience and something to laugh about later once you get that dream job.

I wouldn't send it until I get officially rejected.

I just don't know what to do anymore. Every single time I have an interview for a decent position (this is going on fifty now), something happens, and I get screwed in the end. It makes me more bitter, and more frustrated, and more angry.

Thanks for your support.

[old_school_soul]

That's not the point...there is always something that messes it up. I just cannot interview well since I'm not a good "schmoozer", and until I find someone who's sympathetic to that, I will never have any success in the workforce.


I think you have a sense of entitlement. You are routinely talking about you are socially inept and how the world is unfair to the socially inept. Your ineptness is not something that is permanent, yet you choose for it to be that way because it is more difficult to be social. You are too deep into your own pity and need to crawl out of that, it's not going to get you anywhere.

[and1grad]

He said WHAT to you? There's NO WAY you can let that pass. ABSOLUTELY NO WAY!! You need to make sure you get this clown's full name and his boss' full name and report this to that person. UNBELIEVABLE.

[pisces2473]

I think you have a sense of entitlement. You are routinely talking about you are socially inept and how the world is unfair to the socially inept. Your ineptness is not something that is permanent, yet you choose for it to be that way because it is more difficult to be social. You are too deep into your own pity and need to crawl out of that, it's not going to get you anywhere.
Dude, I don't know where you've been since Mark joined the boards but he has fucking Asperger's Syndrome. It's a form of autism. Autistic people do not socialize well and have trouble making connections with people. So he can't just fucking change, like you and I can. He can make attempts to change--which he has--but it cannot be an overnight transformation.

Cut the kid some slack. Jesus Christ.

[pisces2473]

He said WHAT to you? There's NO WAY you can let that pass. ABSOLUTELY NO WAY!! You need to make sure you get this clown's full name and his boss' full name and report this to that person. UNBELIEVABLE.
No kidding. What a jackass.

[yankeeyosh]

I think you have a sense of entitlement. You are routinely talking about you are socially inept and how the world is unfair to the socially inept. Your ineptness is not something that is permanent, yet you choose for it to be that way because it is more difficult to be social. You are too deep into your own pity and need to crawl out of that, it's not going to get you anywhere.

First of all, thank you Jen and and1 for sticking up for me like that. You guys are great.

Secondly, I am not saying this stuff if I knew there was a way I could change, because I can't...at least immediately. It's a lot tougher for someone like me to change my personality than someone who doesn't have the same disorder (not that it's easy to do under normal circumstances). There has been a little improvement over the years, but it's not fast enough.

I honestly cannot hold a conversation well without bumbling something up. At the meetup today in CT, for instance, I am sure the other people there noticed it, and could vouch for me. I am not a verbal individual...at least orally. I have trouble listening to people when they ask questions, and when I try to answer, my sentences become fragmented, and I make a lot of hand gestures. It is something that I'm not ashamed of and not ashamed to admit...and I have otherwise lived a fairly normal life (and I am very intelligent in many ways)...but in terms of my social and professional life, it has negatively affected them.

[lonestar]

Have you tried any type of group therapy/work were you get a little more comfortable talking with people? I don't know if this would help with your situation, but it might be worth a shot. You can enhance your comfortability around people while keeping it on a "therapy" type basis where no one would judge you for slip ups. I don't have AS, but I am rather socially shy and I know groups helped me a little bit.

Anyway, it might be worth a shot, if nothing else you might make some friends who are in similar positions.

Also, realize not everything goes perfect in an interview...one time I interviewed for a computer tech position and completely fumbled a question...the guy was really cool though and told me to calm down and think it through...that really helped and I ended up getting the job. Leaving the interview, I thought I was sunk. Granted, it sounds like you got the bad luck of the draw with a real dick of an interviewer, but maybe the next time you'll get a better draw...

[wordsmith]

Unfortunately for Mark, the constraints of autism aren't something you can just "unlearn," anymore than people with paralyzed limbs can just "learn" to walk if they quit feeling sorry for themselves and try really hard (and of course, nobody would suggest it). He'll always have difficulty with things that you or I, even if we consider ourselves shy or "not that social," take for granted. It is NOT a matter of "choosing not to be social." Anymore than anybody chooses the limitations placed on them by a disability. The most Mark, or anybody in his position, can do is learn to work AROUND those limitations as best he can, but they're always going to be there. Also, unfortunately for him, he's going to bear the brunt of discrimination that someone with a more visually obvious disability wouldn't necessarily have to face quite so much. But there are a good number of people who think that you just get over being autistic and snap out of it, or that it's not real.

And I am just reading this now, Mark, but I ABSOLUTELY concur that the interviewer should get his ass handed to him on a platter for conducting an interview so inappropriately and in a verbally abusive manner. Who thinks that's acceptable? No fucking way.