You are Hired!

The last few days have been exciting and a little nerve wrecking. For one, I was off to Baltimore, MD to interview with company A (I dont plan to disclose the name on my blog) and the very next day with Company B.

And these are some of the highlights:

• It snows on the day I decide to drive down.
• My cars wiper blade comes off (fortunately I fix it back on).
• There are wind warnings all the way and when crossing this rather long bridge I could feel my car move around with the wind. Fortunately it was not too bad to lose control.
• Even tho' I chose to drive out about 3 PM to beat the rush hour traffic, I still get traffic.
• Driving into the sun with no sun glasses is a really bad idea!
• I spend 2 hours on the eve of my interview playing Wrestling on PS-2.
• When the director interviewed me, he asked me to come in and take a seat (gestures towards a chair). He walked out to get some coffee while I sat on the seat he pointed to. After a while I ealise I was sitting on his seat, staring at his computer screen!
• I liked their idea of "Lunch Interview". Its not with one person but with the whole team. So there were 8 of us in a conference room, yapping away. The only minus point being the food order had not gone through, so it came in an hour n half late. In those 90 minutes I was grilled by 8 people, all at once!
• Even after making it clear my knowledge about statistic was rather elementary, this one statistician went about asking me complex fundas on statistics. When I could not answer, I asked him what the right answer would be. Unfortunately for him, the explanation he provided was wrong which the director immediately noticed and started grilling him further on that area. I pretty much enjoyed what followed for the next 15 minutes and more importantly, my throat got some much needed rest.
• This particular lady who interviewed me happened to be from the Carribbean and had an amazing accent.
  
  

All in all, I loved the experience and loved Company A and its people.

The next day interview with Company B went off reasonably well too. It was really short and rather simple.

The final verdict was I heard back from Company B in a couple of hours after the interview that they liked me and would make an offer. But I needed to get back in 24 hours since the need was immediate (one of the things of being a consultant). And I loved Company A but no responce yet. So it was a gamble where I could reject B and wait for A. A lot of to and fro phone calling finally got a response from A saying they loved me and were making an offer.

So come 4th January, 2005 and I am heading off to Baltimore.... if I pass the drug test that is :-)