Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Stop me if you've heard this one before

I had three (3!) interviews yesterday. (Yes, I slept well last night, thanks for asking.) All went great. Two of them were for consulting services sales positions (don't laugh), and one was for a Director of Pre-Sales position at a small Supply Chain Management vendor. I just got off the phone with Bob, the recruiter who had been lining up interviews with these IT Consultancies. Poor guy. He has been working his tail off for me. It's not easy. These IT Consulting Services sales positions are highly lucrative, and the hiring managers expect that you have a significant track record, 5, 10 years long, of success in the role. Me? I have none. I sold software, and sometimes services came with the deal. So the interviews have been uphill struggles, and I've had to work very hard to demonstrate I have what they're looking for, despite my utter lack of experience. Bob has been very helpful in this regard; so I could hear the pain in his voice.

"Aw2pp, they like you a lot. You've convinced them that you are what they are looking for, and that you fit the profile of successful people in their company. In fact..."

(Get ready, here it comes)

"... a month ago, they'd be working on putting together your offer at this point. And maybe a month from now, they'll be working on your offer. But they just promoted their Sales Manager to Branch Manager. And right now, without a sales manager in place, they don't think they can give you the support, the resources you need to be successful."

Thoughtful pause on my end. Then, "So, Bob, how you doing working on getting them a Sales Manager? Anything I can do to help?"

I have mixed feelings on this. I would like to make the kind of money these positions supposedly command, and of course would highly prefer an offer over any other outcome. But I never sufficiently overcame my own doubts about whether I could make this kind of transition. Clearly I did a fair job of stifling those doubts, since I got (yet another) almost-but-not-quite offer. So although I would rather be evaluating an offer at this point, there is a small sense of satisfaction at having overcome their initial, highly significant doubts about me. Either way, poor Bob is working the phones with the next IT Consultancy on his list, with whom we'll restart the whole exercise possibly as soon as tomorrow.

The good news here is that the third position I interviewed for yesterday, the Pre-Sales Director position is a much closer fit to my profile. The company is comfortable with my sales and technology background, but (here it comes) has some reservations about how little SCM work I have done. So, for now, they are going to continue their conversations with two other candidates. Nevertheless, the inside scoop suggests I might be a better fit than those guys. We'll see. This should conclude quickly, possibly as soon as this week.

With all this going on, I've not had any time to sit at the piano. I made very little progress either on Le Onde as my recital piece, or assignments in Alfred's. And based on this, I admitted to the piano teacher that I didn't think I was going to have Le Onde ready in six weeks. I might be able to struggle through it by that point, if I did nothing else in the meantime. But I think it would be highly unlikely, in that case, that I would be far enough along with it to perform in front of, you know, actual people. For this reason, I Due Fiumi is now my recital piece. Expect a Youtube clip sometime after the June recital.

If I can get Le Onde presentable, I'll let you hear it. Sometime before Labor Day, perhaps. Thanksgiving maybe. Almost certainly in time for recital day, June, 2010.

- Aw2pp, whose cold calling skills are getting a real workout in this jobless period.

1 comment:

Monica K. said...

You have my sympathies, AW2PP. I would not want to be looking for a job in this economy. I'm sure it's hard to keep up your enthusiasm throughout this search, but it does seem like there's light on the horizon. Hang in there. And in the meantime, there's always Einaudi. :)