Interview Day

The dress code at work is “business casual”. Everybody who would be interviewing me knows me and sees me every day. I’d be going directly from my desk to the interviews and back to my desk. Everybody knows that Thursday is “tie day”, and that today is Tuesday. So I wanted to dress nicely, but not too nicely for my interviews today.

I wore a black, collarless dress shirt and blue jeans.

There were two interviews today, within minutes of each other, and an assessment test on Excel. The first interview was with a group. The second interview was one-on-one with person I’d be working with, if I end up in the position.

There were several questions from the first interview repeated in the second interview. The first interview required a lot of spur-of-the-moment answers from me. The second interview allowed me to repeat the answers from the first one, but with the benefit of a rehearsal, of sorts.

During the first interview I was called a “data geek” – which was a good thing, considering the position.

I think I did two very good interviews today. At least, I feel confident about them.

I was the most concerned about the hour-long Excel assessment test. I use Excel from time to time, but not on a regular basis. But, when the time came, it was explained to me that it wasn’t a “pass/fail” test, but rather an assessment to see if I’m a beginner, intermediate, or advanced Excel user.

I think I did just fine with the assessment. It involved a lot of formatting of data, and using formulas. The one bad part for me involved using PivotTable – something I had never even heard of before today. I managed to find it, and use it to make a chart, but I couldn’t get it to do what I was required to do. Maybe finding it will count for something.

The interviews and the assessment took up the majority of my day. I forgot to take lunch. I was exhausted when it was all over.