A Day in San Francisco (Interviews)
Friday I spent the day in San Francisco with job interviews.
I left home at 7:45am to walk to the train station. It was crowded when I arrived. I estimate there were more than 100 people waiting along with me.
It was crowded at Sunnyvale station Friday morning!I've never seen it that crowded in Sunnyvale before, even on the afternoon of a Giants game. Though honestly this is the first time I've come at morning commute hours.
I was planning to catch the 8:14 "Baby Bullet" train with only 4 stops to SF but I was early enough to see the 8:06 limited pull into the station. A quick check of the schedule showed me that it was only 4 minutes slower than the bullet so I'd still arrive ahead of it. Might as well take this train, I figured, provided I can get a seat! We were the first stop north of SJ so the train was mostly empty. Though that crowd on the platform filled the train about half full.
The ride to SF was uneventful. I browsed news and email from my phone and even wrote my previous blog entry. Caltrain is a nicer commuter train than BART. It's quieter and smoother, which is odd because it runs with diesel locomotives while BART is electric. Weird.
Phone Interview from Panera
Once I arrived in SF I camped out at a Panera restaurant. My face-to-face interviews didn't start until 1pm. Ordinarily I would have taken a train later in the day for them but I had a 10am phone screen interview, too. Taking that call from home wouldn't have left enough time to get to SF. And taking that call while in transit seemed unwise, which left me the choice of taking an early train and then doing the phone interview somewhere in town. The Panera across the street from the station at 4th & King worked well.
I noshed on a bagel before my phone call and eflected, for about the fourth time, on how my priorities for the day seemed jumbled. The interviews I'd journeyed into SF for were with a company whose product I don't understand at a technical level. The execs seem really into me but I don't know why. I feel like I'm taking the interview because they asked, not because I really want to. Meanwhile, the job I'm talking to a lady about from a table at a fast food restaurant is one that's in my industry, where I do understand what the product does and how I'd sell it. Shouldn't I have focused on acing that inteview and told the company in SF, "Thanks but no thanks"?
Well, first, Keep the Pipeline Full. There's a reason why I wrote that blog entry on the train this morning. To keep my job searching pipeline full I'm courting opportunities that don't seem like perfect fits right off the bat. I'm giving them a chance to grow on me. Second, as I learned toward the end of the cordial conversation I had from my table at Panera, the company I spoke to that would be a great fit is probably going to offer the job to another candidate who got in their pipeline several weeks ago. So if I'd blown off the company in SF I'd have had no forward progress for the day.
Pizza, Beer, and an In-person Interview
After the phone screen it was almost time for lunch. I considered just staying at Panera. It was a comfortable place. They had free wifi, and there was a working electrical outlet next to my seat. But I needed a change. So I walked a few blocks across town and landed at a pizzeria. Which had chicken parm pizza. Yum! And a beer special. Yum! Because, "Hey, let's have a beer before a job interview" is totally a thing!
I arrived at 12:45 for my 1pm interviews. The VP I was meeting first was busy until a few minutes after 1. We had a good chat. I impressed him with my experience selling software tools to people with DIY mindsets. That's one thing I learned (on the spot) about what this job would entail. Unfortunately I still didn't know much about how the product works.
Next I met the company's COO and all-around business strategist, operations supervisor, product idea guy. "Oh great," I worried, "He's totally going to figure out that I'm faking it." Except he didn't. He didn't care. He was more interested in explaining the product to me. He showed me a demo so I could see for the first time how it works.
I used that knowledge next to talk to the company's enterprise sales guy. He was actually way more skeptical than the COO. But in a good way. He asked lots of good interview questions. I haven't had an interview quite that tough in a while. But it was fair, because he and I would be partners. Each of us needs to understand if we can work closely with the other.
The day ended abruptly after that. The COO popped back in and explained that the guy I was supposed to talk to next was tied up with end-of-quarter stuff and couldn't be interrupted. I would've taken that as the polite form of "Sorry, we're not interested in you any longer"... except that the last guy on the schedule was the most junior, a recent college grad. Usually when a company cuts the schedule short because you're not a fit they're cutting out the interviews with the highest level people. So... who knows. I'll learn more when I followup on Monday.
I left home at 7:45am to walk to the train station. It was crowded when I arrived. I estimate there were more than 100 people waiting along with me.
It was crowded at Sunnyvale station Friday morning!I've never seen it that crowded in Sunnyvale before, even on the afternoon of a Giants game. Though honestly this is the first time I've come at morning commute hours.
I was planning to catch the 8:14 "Baby Bullet" train with only 4 stops to SF but I was early enough to see the 8:06 limited pull into the station. A quick check of the schedule showed me that it was only 4 minutes slower than the bullet so I'd still arrive ahead of it. Might as well take this train, I figured, provided I can get a seat! We were the first stop north of SJ so the train was mostly empty. Though that crowd on the platform filled the train about half full.
The ride to SF was uneventful. I browsed news and email from my phone and even wrote my previous blog entry. Caltrain is a nicer commuter train than BART. It's quieter and smoother, which is odd because it runs with diesel locomotives while BART is electric. Weird.
Phone Interview from Panera
Once I arrived in SF I camped out at a Panera restaurant. My face-to-face interviews didn't start until 1pm. Ordinarily I would have taken a train later in the day for them but I had a 10am phone screen interview, too. Taking that call from home wouldn't have left enough time to get to SF. And taking that call while in transit seemed unwise, which left me the choice of taking an early train and then doing the phone interview somewhere in town. The Panera across the street from the station at 4th & King worked well.
I noshed on a bagel before my phone call and eflected, for about the fourth time, on how my priorities for the day seemed jumbled. The interviews I'd journeyed into SF for were with a company whose product I don't understand at a technical level. The execs seem really into me but I don't know why. I feel like I'm taking the interview because they asked, not because I really want to. Meanwhile, the job I'm talking to a lady about from a table at a fast food restaurant is one that's in my industry, where I do understand what the product does and how I'd sell it. Shouldn't I have focused on acing that inteview and told the company in SF, "Thanks but no thanks"?
Well, first, Keep the Pipeline Full. There's a reason why I wrote that blog entry on the train this morning. To keep my job searching pipeline full I'm courting opportunities that don't seem like perfect fits right off the bat. I'm giving them a chance to grow on me. Second, as I learned toward the end of the cordial conversation I had from my table at Panera, the company I spoke to that would be a great fit is probably going to offer the job to another candidate who got in their pipeline several weeks ago. So if I'd blown off the company in SF I'd have had no forward progress for the day.
Pizza, Beer, and an In-person Interview
After the phone screen it was almost time for lunch. I considered just staying at Panera. It was a comfortable place. They had free wifi, and there was a working electrical outlet next to my seat. But I needed a change. So I walked a few blocks across town and landed at a pizzeria. Which had chicken parm pizza. Yum! And a beer special. Yum! Because, "Hey, let's have a beer before a job interview" is totally a thing!
I arrived at 12:45 for my 1pm interviews. The VP I was meeting first was busy until a few minutes after 1. We had a good chat. I impressed him with my experience selling software tools to people with DIY mindsets. That's one thing I learned (on the spot) about what this job would entail. Unfortunately I still didn't know much about how the product works.
Next I met the company's COO and all-around business strategist, operations supervisor, product idea guy. "Oh great," I worried, "He's totally going to figure out that I'm faking it." Except he didn't. He didn't care. He was more interested in explaining the product to me. He showed me a demo so I could see for the first time how it works.
I used that knowledge next to talk to the company's enterprise sales guy. He was actually way more skeptical than the COO. But in a good way. He asked lots of good interview questions. I haven't had an interview quite that tough in a while. But it was fair, because he and I would be partners. Each of us needs to understand if we can work closely with the other.
The day ended abruptly after that. The COO popped back in and explained that the guy I was supposed to talk to next was tied up with end-of-quarter stuff and couldn't be interrupted. I would've taken that as the polite form of "Sorry, we're not interested in you any longer"... except that the last guy on the schedule was the most junior, a recent college grad. Usually when a company cuts the schedule short because you're not a fit they're cutting out the interviews with the highest level people. So... who knows. I'll learn more when I followup on Monday.