I must admit, I hadn't been as enthusiastic as I'd hoped about looking for a new job.I'd applied for several positions a range of IT support, Systems admin, network admin roles. Even a SQL position. Something that I could really get into. But I hadn't heard anything in reply to any of my submissions, so I was just stuck, in the routine of getting up, adding a couple of jobs to an ever expanding window and lots of free time. I had a rough budget, but sticking to a budget is difficult when you have the choice of staying in and being depressed about no social contact, or going out and feeling depressed because you are compelled to spend money.
I was impressed how quickly my sleeping habits went wrong too. After about four days, I was back to my uni 3am to 11am time period.
Monday the 28th June felt like a normal day. I had been trying to do 2 job applications a day. I thought I could do more, but rewriting a cover letter takes a lot out of you. My latest search on Seek had brought up a number of jobs hosted by online recruitment agency. So, being lazy, I just sent my resume and cover letter to the website and decided that would do for the day. I had a sudden burst of energy and decided to make somewhat of an effort, I attempted to do some tidying of my lounge room I even cleaned up enough to vacuum the floor. But other than that, nothing exciting. Tuesday is when things got a little more interesting.
I got a phone call from someone from that recruitment agency with the exciting news, that there were two immediate start positions that she wanted to get me into. One was at a private boys school. Nostalgia, of course, hit me very quickly. I would be back to fantastic hours. Doing support by myself and getting to do some not too complicated stuff. Unassisted, unaccompanied joy. Then I heard about the other job. It was a contract at a mining firm. Phone support to begin with, but the possibility to move to more advanced work, including server management, SoE deployment and administrator roles. I was advised that it was a contract, based on whenever the company decided to outsource their low level support, which I was advised will not be for sometime, so the contract will be rolling until some plans are in place.
I guess it's me making a big deal of reading everything. But, it was like this weird choice, do I move on? Doing support towards what i want to eventually do and start getting experience now? Or do I spend a couple more years just bumming around doing my own thing? So I did what I always did when faced with a tough decision. Hired out a bunch of movies and ate ice cream. But of course, I was lucky and decision was made for me.
On Thursday evening, I got a phone call, the rep of the IT recruitment agency, saying that the mining company wanted an interview. In just over 12 hours. There would be your standard interview questions to be answered in standard STAR format, then a technical component. Oh and do you have any piercings, tattoos and what were you going to wear? Because she had never met me, she was concerned that I looked like I spoke or something. I could reassure her that I would be wearing a suit and apart from acne, my face does look approachable. I thanked her, ended the call, then realised I had a job interview, at a place I didn't know where, in a shirt that probably wouldn't be ironed, to impress a company I'd only heard about on Tuesday. After panicking a bit, a nice bowl of choc mint and proceeding to find that "Stranger than Fiction" is totally underrated - I realised that I actually had to get out of bed before lunch tomorrow, so should think about sleeping. I'd just about fallen asleep when I realised that I should probably check the time I needed to board a train and see if there were more shirts than the one in the in the back of my car under half a dozen Cold Rock containers. I found I needed to be at the station in roughly 8 hours and that there will a couple of shirts that were standing up by themselves so didn't need ironing. I then lay in my bed trying to remember anything I knew about computers.
Now, I have promised on the subject of fairness, that I do not discuss the questions of my interview, however I have not stated and will not state what company and recruitment agency I did this under, and will happily remove this post at the discretion of a representative of either party. But if you're looking for interview advice and found this blog, well, you're doing it wrong.
So at just before half past ten, after hoping that the Ferny Grove line did indeed run past South Brisbane station (In Brisbane, there are multiple trains that run "To the city" going South, 90% terminate at Roma Street, going North 90% terminate at Bowen Hills, I am near to Albion on the North side of the river, I need to get to South Brisbane one stop more South than Roma Street. You have no idea how hard they make it, I'm taking the bus more often.), I turned up for my 11am interview. After a thrilling 5 minute induction getting to learn what to do if an Anthrax scare occurs, I proceeded to take a seat and read through promotional materials. Pretend not too notice the man struggling with projector in the meeting room off the reception area. The interviewee appear, questioned my punctuality and told me to go get a coffee cause the meeting she was attending was likely to run over time. I decided juice would be better nothing to heavy, it was still very early by my internal clock and coffee is something I don't do in the morning, mornings are reserved for Red Bull. I sat for a good 20 minutes slowly watching people come and go, buying different drinks and elevenses, until I decided it should be a good time to head up, it was, as I arrived in the reception area for a second time, I got called in. This, was actually the calmest I think I've ever been before an interview, it was my first one in a long time, and although the prospects weren't looking good for many more, this I decided to take as an opportunity to get back into the groove on how to act during an interview, try to be honest. Try to be calm.
"Relax, we're very laid back here. Breathe out. Okay now, we haven't actually got your resume, in fact, we don't know anything past your first name and that you've had some background in IT. So, tell us about yourself and your background."
Okay, wow. I could tell them anything. I'm not sure what they want to hear. So I told them about Freo, about the Department, about uni. They were impressed
"And you're applying for a level one role?!" One of them admitted in disbelief. I have two smidges of IT experience on my resume and a degree. When people want experience, 18 months rarely cuts the mustard. Nor would a knife really, in fact that best way to split mustard would be.. I've gone off topic, where was I, oh yes. It's one thing to say that you've had a computer in your room from a young age, and that you are comfy infront of anything with a processor and some RAM and an an input device. It anything to present that like it would be useful in a job. When I haven't compiled my own Linux distribution or built water cooling into my system, I always find my technical skills are actually pretty mundane. So when questioned about my intentions, I state the obvious.
"My dream is to do administration, whether systems, network or database, and for that you need a lot of experience in support roles." They agreed with that. Then began the the "Interview" interview stuff.
"Name a time when you dealt with a difficult customer." The brilliant thing about customers when dealing with IT support, is there is a small group who are very unique. Rather than simply deciding to appear inept, they decide to get annoyed at their ineptitude - Now a lot of IT people hate this group. I say no, I say at one point, they actually found out that this question is given at all interviews of IT support and they think "Look, I don' want any poor young IT person o go in here with no examples, so if I do things like, being resistant to learning a new process, thinking my job is more important than there, thinking that the uptime of my equipment is he highest priority, then they'll have content for this question! And more the point, they have to think in new ways to convince me otherwise, allowing them to better develop communication skills. It's a win-win!" So I applaud these people, who out of the graciousness of their hearts be inventive with barriers to hinder my work so that I can I can gain better analytical skills. They are totally not arrogant douche bags trying to make up for the fact that someone is giving them a hard time so they have to give someone else a hard time to feel important and rekindle some self esteem.
So I give my default answer with a time when some new security permissions denied a client's ability to use a piece of scanning software and had to learn a new piece and for three hours had to tell them it's this piece of software or nothing and fantasised that with a three year old, if you ignore the tantrum or give them a smack they generally get over themselves, but anyway.
"Explain a time you missed a dead line." This actually stuns me a bit, I know it's a standard interview question, and I could have given examples from earlier this year, something in the back of my mind makes me release a different story about problems with imaging machines a couple of years ago, I barely remember the story, but for some reason, I use it as an example because I know it actually has a happish ending.
Some other Situation-Task-Altitude-Result questions. Then comes the bit I've been partially dreading, slightly excited about.
"I'd like to turn it over to the team leader for the IT questions."
"How do I renew my IP address?"
"Erm.." My voice had disappeared, I wasn't really sure what I was expecting to be asked, but now I had to use my words to somehow create a coherent set of instructions for an action which had made up 2/3rds of my degree. Seriously, if you can renew an IP you know enough information for the first 6 chapters of the very first CCNA book (There's four CCNA books, but still.)
"Go to Start, then run type cmd, a black window should appear, in the window type 'ipconfig (CRAP, is it a forward slash or a back slash... I wonder if she'd let me get away with just saying slash.) slash.release' a number of lines should scroll across the screen with a number of zeros, then type 'ipconfig slash revew' she smiles, nods in agreement and writes something down and reads out the next question.
"What's the difference between TCP and UDP?" This time, my mouth did decide to fall apart. "TCP packets um, every TCP.. segment, segment? Yes, segment has a reply packet attached, or rather, when it gets to it's destination an ACK packet is sent back."
"And in UDP?" "Oh sorry, in UDP there is no ACK packet, the host just keeps sending them. Low latency." (Oh god, why didn't I just define them, anyone who knows the initialism for UDP immediately gets high marks because it's such a stupid initialism.) I think they got the general gist. they knew I did know because they were willing to ask the follow up.
"Where would you see one opposed to the other?" You see UDP in VoIP communications because it needs to be as delay free as possible, and it's useless to get an older packet, cause then the words would be in the wrong order.
Okay, that last bit came out a bit of a mess, but I think I can recover.
"How do you tell the difference between a CAT5 and a CAT6 cable." Oh crap. I think back to a time when I had lots of network cables in a draw. There was a way to tell them apart? Really. Didn't I remember reading something there being different coloured wires inside the cables, or they cross over in different ways? Oh no, silence is too long, think about cat5 cable, think about a cat6 cable what is different... Gotta take a stab at something.. "Erm... The writing along the cable. There's some black text printed on it, part of it says what Cat cable it is." I look at them waiting for a reaction. I get one of great relief.
"YES!" one of them says "Sorry, it's a trick question, we've been doing this format of interview for a couple of years and no one has EVER got that right, you are the first person to get that right so well done."
I make a face that says "I thought that was common knowledge..." while my brain has a nerdgasm. You, my brain, are broken in all the right ways - you just bluffed your way out of a trick question by blind luck. You sir, are getting a milkshake and high five on the way home.
My confidence shot through the roof and I sware I could taste the dopamine in my mouth. There is nothing that could stop me.
"Give an example of a FQDN." You ever see one of those graphs of the value of stock market just before it crashes? Oh yeah. My mind came out blank, and with the Q in there nothing I could say could fix it. It vaguely stirs some memories of stuff I was doing with housemate, but I have no idea where it fits. I got lucky once, like a person who wins the lotto once never plays again (and normally wastes the winnings on poor investments.) I decided to be honest. "I have absolutely no idea. I could guess but it would be total BS." I admit, it sort of left my mouth before my brain had time to check over the wording of the sentence. I'm not sure whether it was of awkwardness or they found it generally funny. But I got a hearty laugh for a few seconds, and thought I deserved another chance.
"If I told you it stood for Fully Qualified Domain Name, would you know then?"
"Errr, no sorry." Again, flashes of research for housemate's network ran through my mind. "It's something like rapture.com" The irony of this it was my mind trying to make stuff up again. When I'd first experienced FQDN's, I though, no that's silly, why should every device on the network be called by a fully qualified domain name? a FQDN sounds like some sort of special name for the the domain, not a device on the domain, so I ignored it. And here it was, haunting itself again ,the fact that it is a name for a device connected on a dome, created by combining the device name and the domain name to reveal it's place in terms of the domain hierarchy. Well, now it's burned into my brain.
"What are computers, users and groups listed as in AD?"
Wait what? This is one of those times they wanted a specialist phrase, and with no professional experience in AD, the word would never pop into my mind, and after almost swearing, and giving a half hearted answer, I decided to can it. "Do you mean a hierarchy?" "Not so much how they are stored, what are they stored as." "I'm sorry I don't know the phrase you're trying to get me to say.." "Objects." Admittedly, I would of never said that.
There's some more light discussion about my previous work and the Interview wraps up. Both of them are very cheerful as I go. I walk out into the world not knowing about success in the position, but knowing I have made an effort for an interview. I contact the IT recruitment agency to have a free coffee and discussion about the interview I'm on one side of the city, she's on the other, so it's a bit of a trek. A bit of a trek which gives me time to think. Too much time.
Wait, I didn't really walk about how long I've been working with computers. About how I've been the go to guy for some time among family. The fact that I have had some AD experience with housemate, and again, in the Department, I didn't really highlight that I have had some Linux training, SQL work, network design, CCNP experience. I touched on a few things, but nothing very serious. Nothing about the fact I understand VPN's, ACL's and TLA's. And what about my technical questions? Maybe it's a good thing I didn't highlight any experience with AD, because it didn't come across. And I almost swore, sure they said relax, but I crossed a line, I admitted lack of knowledge. You... just don't do that.
By the time I arrive at the recruitment agency, I'm a bit of a wreck. The confidence is gone, my hunger is gone, my want to exceed has disappeared. I am ready to slink back into the hovel I call my rental property and disappear in a mess of chocolate wrappers and macaroni cheese.
It's an agonising wait, I call her to tell her I've arrived, she just needs to make a couple of phone calls, then the first grilling begins. I can't just post that I screwed up an interview on Facebook, I can tell each family member has plans to call me tonight to go over everything and start offering advice that I should smarten up a bit and take things a bit more seriously. After about ten minutes of waiting in a boring lobby, she walks with me and shouts me an iced coffee. I don't feel like it, it's just going to make me feel gross.
And then she says it "So, how do you think you went?"
I try to keep a flame of optimism alive "Okay I think, there were a couple of moments when I had to take some time to think through answers, and a couple of times I had trouble structuring what I was trying to say, but I think everything went okay."
"What about the technical questions?"
"I could answer or give explanations for most of them.. So I think okay."
some silence.
"You're quiet, did something go wrong?"
"I don't think anything went major wrong, unfortunately I've got to that point when I'm trying to remember just what I said."
Small laugh.
"Do you have any feedback or comments?"
"No, they were both very nice and friendly and I did eventually relax."
"That's good to hear. Anyway, I've just gotten off the phone with them and they'd like you to start Monday, if that's possible."
.
...
......
"What?"
"Monday, are you okay to start then?"
"Erm, pfff erg, erm... Z'Okay."
"Yes they were very impressed with you, especially your handling of the technical questions. So next question how much would you like to be paid?"
There's some money discussion which I won't bore you with here.
"Okay, now as I said before it is on contract, so the initial contract period goes to October, but it's all reliant on a HP deal going through, which isn't very likely, there's another meeting about it next week. Until that gets signed off, it's just rolling. The absolute earliest you'll finish is early next year. Okay, so, how are you feeling now?"
"Still a bit shocked actually."
"Okay well, again, congratulations, and I'll leave you to the rest of your day."
"Thank you... Very much, for everything."
"That's okay my pleasure, and I'll hopefully see you on Monday around 9 o'clock."
"Okay."
I briskly leave the cafe and quickly find a park bench to sit on to take everything in. On Monday, I didn't know what I was going to do, now on Friday, it's only just past lunch and I have a job. Hmmm... Lunch. I am starving. But before I consider where I'm going to go for my celebratory dish, I think back on what I just did. I convinced a recruiter with a quick resume and a cover letter which took me less than an hour that I was technically experienced. She lined up an interview, and with two people who had never heard of me before, I managed to make them believe I had confidence, charisma and technical knowledge. So that is how you get a job,
Like. A. Fucking. Boss.
She congratulates me one last time, wishes me well, then points me on my way. I down the rest of the ice coffee, throw the carton in the recycle (Cause I'm awesome like that.) and start to swagger, after all, I'm employed and I'm wearing a suit. I can do anything.
So how is it? I'm halfway through my second week, and it's GOOD. It's the exact support I can get my teeth into, problem solving always generates job satisfaction for me. Although many processes and ways of doing things are new, it's still a very rewarding experience, and I'm doing my best to pick things as quickly as possible, I want to show that I am an asset, so when my contract comes up for expiry they'll quietly move me into a permanent position - hopefully as a server goblin.
Positions sadly unavailable: IT Support Officer ( Level 1 &2) - Immediate Start!!
Actually, this is kind of a lie, they are still short staffed...
Places where she isn't: Wow, okay. I'm really not sure what to do with this section for the time being. Because yes, Stalkee #3 and me are still in... Whatever this is. Whatever it is when two people set aside an hour or more each day to keep each other amused.
Graffiti or the week:
"Yes, yes, I do."
Warning, tree occurring in road.
Until I get banned from the network, for accessing something I shouldn't, probably, goodbye.
