:: Life on Planet Dan-E ::

:: Tuesday, February 26, 2008 ::

:: Job Search: Recruiting Help ::

This is how badly I need to a find a job and soon: my last post was a 1691-word treatise about cheeseburgers. This is what happens when you have too much free time and you’re bored senseless. I could probably write another post devoted to the shit we used to do around the restaurant when it was slow (at this rate, look for it Thursday afternoon). Just outta curiosity, how many of you actually read through the whole thing? What about the ones not from California?

I have a friend back in L.A. who's a recruiter. He offered to critique my resume and coverletter, as well as my interview skills after he found out what happened. He went through my stuff over the weekend and I also explained to him some of the hurdles I ran into during this job hunt. He said for the most part that I'm doing it right and that my resume is fine. It just needs a few tweaks to beef it up. Which is fine because I was worried it might require a complete redo.

Part of me thinks it's overkill to get this sort of help for a job that I probably won't even have at the end of the year but this level of frustration is becoming aggravating and I need to do something. It's also a good way to keep my mind focused on the task at hand because otherwise I'll be wallowing in melancholy over my situation and that's never good. I end up thinking too much and it invariably drifts to negativity and melancholy becomes despair.

The last interview was at a steakhouse in Downtown Miami It was a preliminary interview and lasted less than ten minutes. I wanna say it went well since not only do I have a some fundamental knowledge of steaks, I mentioned I knew they specialized in hormone-free beef. I told him I knew the farm where their beef comes from, and gave a brief description of other menu items. Afterwards, I sent him a brief thank you email. If I pass the first round they'll call me for a second interview sometime this week. I'm trying to stay optimistic and say chances are... 60/40.

I also have a interview at a very trendy restaurant on Lincoln Road this Wednesday. I’ve actually eaten there once and while I loved the meal, I never ate there again because the prices seemed exorbitant. I guess this is good thing in that as long as I keep getting invited to interviews one of them HAVE to eventually bite. Right?

Funny story: my recruiting buddy is also a huge baseball fan. Because of the numerous Latin players in the league, he jokes that if he played in the Majors, he would have changed his name to have a Latin twist, despite the fact that he's Korean. So "Eddie Sung" (not his real name) would have become "Eduardo de la Sung". He insisted on the "de la." We found it amusing and would even call him "Eduardo" every now and then. I even have him on my phone as "Eduardo de la Sung."

Last week, during one of my morning interviews I was filling out an application and pulled out my phone so I could get his info down as a reference. Perhaps due to the lack of coffee, I actually wrote on the application "Eduardo de la Sung."

It wasn't until I wrote down the number that I realized what I did. I couldn't help but laugh at it and left it as is. I called him later that night to tell him what happened which he found hilarious. It's too bad they never called.

Labels: frustration, funny words, interviews, job search

:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 11:30 AM [+] :: | 0 comments
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