So I managed to land a phone interview with both Netflix and Google! When I got the emails I was elated and my job search felt like it was finally paying off. The Netflix interview was sort of unexpected and, as a result, I didn't feel 100% prepared. I knew the req. inside and out and knew how great a match I made for it. The recruiter was very friendly and we went through the typical background questions first. What did I do at my last job? How does that translate to what this position requires, etc. etc. I was a little thrown off my game when she asked about the way we ran our data. What software did we use? Ummmm......ummmm.....drawing a blank....didn't really think about this....she's waiting for an answer. DAMMIT! When I think about it now, our data sets were never really that large and so we generally used online survey hosts to build our surveys and gather our data. As far as running analysis, we stuck to Excel most of the time. Oh hindsight, you bastard! Where were you when I needed you? Needless to say, I probably sounded like an idiot. She then asked a little bit more about my last company and I told her that it was a rather small company (about 15 people) to which she sounded less than enthusiastic. Strike two. At this point, I could have told her that I have worked for large companies before but my last employer was not one-which makes me quite versatile. But, nope. I was silent. I let her think that I am a small fry and have no experience in a large company setting. Strike three? Finally, she tells me more about the position and puts great emphasis on how quantitative it is (not sure if this is to subtly hint that it is beyond my skill set)and that it requires someone who can jump from one statistical package to the next to the next very quickly. She then asks me what I am looking for in my next position. Here is where I am sure that I sealed my fate. Instead of being succinct and to the point, my nerves get the best of me and I drone on about finding a place where I can continue to learn and grow and blah blah blah blah blah....kill me. Poor woman. I am pretty sure there is no way to salvage the interview at this point. She tells me that she is going to talk to the hiring manager a little more about me and my skills and will then get back to me sometime next week to let me know. I kindly thank her and hang up. Here is me:
Except I'm not a gorgeous athlete. So, I will wait but I am not expecting any miracles.
Next up: Google. I am still in a bit of shock that I was even noticed by Google. Out of the thousands of resumes they receive they called me! Regardless of what happens, I will always have that. When I saw that email in my inbox, I nearly peed my pants. I immediately googled (that's irony)"google phone interview" to gather pointers about what to expect. What I saw both helped and freaked me out a bit. I did everything I could to prepare for this interview. I even talked to someone in HR about the best way to prepare (friend of a friend). I think I might have been better prepared for this 30 minute phone interview than I was for my GREs. No, I know was better prepared.
Day of reckoning: The recruiter is very friendly and puts me at ease pretty quickly. She spends a great deal of time getting dates and degrees in order and then talks a little bit about what I did at previous jobs. Then the technical questions come out. My heart sinks and I know it's do or die. Despite my preparation, I am still a little thrown by a couple of the questions. I do my best to answer and she is very sweet not to rush or make me feel silly about obviously drawing a complete blank. Overall, I would guess that my score was 82%. That's a B-. Not exactly Google material. She did give me some insight into the position and informed me that what they were really looking for was someone with a background in mathematics. This is definitely not me. She said she pulled my resume because I had done a lot of the analysis that they were looking for and she, essentially, thought she'd give me a chance. I don't know what this means, exactly but I hope I didn't disappoint her too much. I won't find out if I made it to the second round until about 2 weeks from now. So few people make it much further than the 2nd interview and I don't think I will be one of them, but it was a great experience and one that few people get. It also shows me that my job hunt has not been in vain. That has given me a bit of hope.
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