Thursday, May 24, 2007 , terribly early in the morning

The job opportunity which wasn’t

About a month ago, I sent my unsolicited resume to PETA.  I saw that they had a large number of job openings, and I thought that perhaps there might be one I could do via telecommuting, even if it was only part-time.  They wrote back to me almost immediately with a sort of “quiz”—it was a number of questions, as varied as, “Are you a vegetarian?” to “What are your five favourite online marketing tools, and why?” I spent quite a long time answering them, sent them back, and a week later I was invited for a job interview.  The person interviewing me had the perfect position in mind, and it was full-time, and I could telecommute, and I would get health insurance!  The Holy Grail!  I was so excited, and after speaking to the interviewer on the phone, I felt that I could not only do the tasks they had in mind for me to do, but I could help them delve into areas where they hadn’t yet ventured.  I thought it would be a good partnership.  The only sticking point was the “in-person visit”.  I would have to fly to their headquarters in Virginia for two full days of office meetings.  At my own expense.

I did the research on airfares, and it wasn’t pretty.  It was going to be a minimum of $400 just for airfare, and that didn’t include my meals.  PETA offered to give me accommodations in one of three houses they own for visiting staff members, and they offered transportation, but I would still be responsible for meals, transporation if I wanted to leave the house, etc.  I wasn’t sure how I felt about sleeping in a house, either.  How many people would be there?  How many bathrooms were there?  Would I be able to sleep properly in a house with strangers?  I was a bit uptight about it, but willing to embrace my inner youth hostel to enjoy the experience.

The airfare issue still bothered me, however.  We’re always one step behind the bill collectors, and we’re in one medical crisis after another, and we just don’t have any extra money.  We especially don’t have $500+ for me to go off galavanting for 48 hours on the other side of the country (even though it would make a great blog entry).  I really wanted the job, though, so I wrote to the guy who interviewed me and asked what my chances were of being offered the job after I visited.  I was hoping he’d say something like, “I have a good feeling about you and think you’d probably be a great addition to our office, but we need you to visit so you can get to know everyone, and we can make sure that we’re all comfortable working together, yadda yadda yadda.” That’s not what he said.  He said, and I quote, “most of the people I’ve invited into the office for a working interview are not offered jobs.” That really made my heart sink.  I even wrote back to clarify that he hadn’t made a typo, and he said that the majority of office interviewees are not hired.

So, I pondered, and wondered, and wished (but no genie showed up), and the only conclusion I could come to was to turn him down, and to just accept that I won’t be working for PETA, and I won’t finally have my beloved health insurance.  It seemed selfish and irresponsible of me to go to that interview, especially if I didn’t get a job and had just wasted a whole lot of money.  That money would pay for all of Flippy’s prescriptions for a month, or it would allow both Eli and Dante to have their overdue vet checks.  Even if I’d been offered a job, we would have been in the financial hole for quite a while because of that extravagance.  Perhaps the worst part for me was that I had no idea what sort of criteria were being examined at the office visit, so I had nothing to prepare for, and no way to assess my performance.  It would be like writing a test where every questions had two possible answers, and you had no idea which answer would be considered correct.  Usually, an applicant has a degree of control at a job interview, but in this case I felt I was deliberately being sent into it unprepared.

I’m sad.  I really wanted that job.  I didn’t want it enough to gamble for it, or to lose money because of it.  The health insurance sure would have been nice, though.  Now I’ll start sending out more applications… the “cold calls” (i.e., “cold emails") really get quite a good response.  I’m going to apply for a position at Yahoo, because if they want to meet me, I think they’ll pay for the plane ticket smile

Posted by Leigh-Ann on 05/24 at 05:58 AM
The Litterbox • (7) Comments • Permalink
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