Sometimes, It's Just Not in the Cards in New Beginnings

I bombed my Caterpillar interview yesterday. It was supposed to happen on Wednesday, but I started getting sick Saturday evening. Sunday was worse; I woke up with a fever, headache, ear ache, body aches, coughing fits, and nausea. By Monday morning, I envied the dead. On Tuesday, I had to email the HR lady to ask her if we could reschedule, as I doubted I’d be in any sort of condition to drive anywhere, do anything, or talk to people. She said the only other time she could reschedule was on Thursday at 1:00pm. I accepted, and hoped that the extra day would allow me to recover enough. By Wednesday, by fever had finally broken, and Thursday I was functional enough to interview.

I left at 11:00am. Atlanta traffic was easy to get through, the morning commuters long since dissipated. I was still a little groggy, and I was drinking a lot of water to keep my throat from triggering another coughing spell. I was hoping I’d arrive with enough time to stop by the local library and refill my water bottle, which I had finished off during the drive. I don’t know how professional attending a job interview with a water bottle in hand is perceived, but I didn’t think I could make it through talking for an hour with my throat being as tender as it was. Such was not the case, and I had just enough time to wait outside the gate for a few minutes so I would make the faux pas of showing up too early. No matter, often times interviewers will offer me a water, and I hoped that would happen this time.

The facility was very impressive. It’s a manufacturing plant, entirely indoors, where they make bulldozers, tractors, scrapers, dump trucks, and so forth. I was never one of those children who was super enamored with giant construction vehicles, and I didn’t get to see any of the items being assembled beyond was what playing on the television in the lobby, but just seeing those brand new, freshly painted earth movers outside made me feel like a tyke. Here’s a video of the actual plant where I interviewed

The entire facility was fenced in, and I had to have security buzz me in after verifying that I actually had an appointment. Amy was the HR lady with whom I had been corresponding. After a short wait, she met me in the reception area and took me back to the interview room. We chatted for a bit. I apologized for making her reschedule, but she seemed okay with it. We chatted for a bit while waiting for the two additional interviewers, another accountant named Jackie and a client representative named Amanda.

I’ve discussed how I often become nervous during interviews, causing me to stutter and stammer. That was in full force, likely because it was a STAR interview. I forget was “STAR” stands for, but basically they were machine gunning with questions that each demanded I tell a biopic. “Describe a time you had to lead a project.” “Describe a time you had to learn a new task.” “Describe a time you had to absorb another coworkers responsibilities.” “Describe a time you had to earn someone’s trust.” Compounding that with my still being groggy from my illness, and I sounded like a gibbering mess. Also, there was no offer of water. A few times I had to draw upon my resolve to suppress a coughing fit.

The thing about interviews, is that they’re supposed to go both ways. Yes, the company is interviewing you to see if it would like to hire you, but you’re also interviewing that company to see if you would like to work for it. The way this interview went with them grilling me, it took up the whole hour. When it was over, I was spent and just wanted to go home and fall asleep. I asked a couple of softball questions, told them I didn’t want to keep them from their year end close, and asked what the steps going forward would be. They said they were finishing their interviews that day, and they would let me know sometime next week. As Amy was walking me out the door, she said, “so that was your first STAR interview?” She said it like a question, but it felt more like a statement. I’m sure next week, I’ll get an email thanking me for coming, but they’ve decided to pursue other candidates. It seems like date where the other person dominates the conversation then blows you off as soon as it’s done.