Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 2:14pm.
ok.
i think i'm going to throw up. seriously.
i'm going to transcribe my phone interview for you and you can be the judge of how it went.
actually, no, i'm going to rant first and just get that out of the way while the gettings good.
here is the problem with searching for a job in a law office: they never tell you the name of the law office in the ad. usually it's about three lines long and reads something like "downtown personal injury firm seeks motivated individual with a four year degree for general legal assitant / clerk duties. seeking a legal secretary with at least 3 years experiance in worker's comp but will consider the training the right applicant." and that is all. then you reply through the annonymous email system on craigslist or careerbuilder. and your annonymous application is supposed to beat out the other 300 people also drowning in debt and begging to be considered (just considered, not even hired). this system makes it impossible to stand out.
you can't do any reseach on the law office before hand, since you don't even have a name for it. they could be advertised on channel 26 or they could be on the 91st story of the sears tower. you'll never know. are they a family firm? should you be funny, comfortable, and tell the story of setting up your lemonade stand only to give all the lemonade away for free? you'll never know. they could be dynamo legal professionals who wear armani and pinch their secretary's butt. they could be assholes you wouldn't want to work for anyway.
and they never, NEVER, give you an idea of the starting salary. i'm so sick of wasting my time going through the interview process only to find out they pay $7.50/hr and, oh, yeah, want you to do all the office housecleaning. (you think i'm kidding on that one? NOOOO. i actually was rather far into the interview process before i discovered they essentially were hiring a cleaning lady and that cleaning the bathroom was in my job description).
also, this makes it impossible to tailor your resume in any way to the position. you can't say "i see here that your firm does a lot of immmigration pro bono work and i think i'm uniquely qualified for that, you know, living in albany park and all." so you have to send out this fucking gereric as hell resume that lists your objective as something lame like "a position that utilizes my secretarial office skills and affinity for working with people." when the job you're applying for could very well potentially be filing documents in the basement.
i am so fucking sick of wasting my godamn time.
i feel like i'm dating again, but in a horrible fat diseased hooker-ish way. with visible herpes sores. i have to convince some smelly, overpaid figurehead that he wants me, oh yeah baby, you want me? not to mention he's going to treat me like shit, beat me up from time to time, scream at me, humiliate me. and make me walk naked through humbolt park. and can i break up with him? NOoOo. forget about that. standards? HA! i'm a fat diseased hooker, i need him more than he could ever possibly need me and hundreds, fucking THOUSANDS of other scared useless twenty-somethings are just jumping to take my place.
okay, now i'm ready to transcribe my phone interview.
not sure what the ettiquitte being for punctuality when you call someone at a specific time (generally i like to show up at least ten minutes early for an interview), i called three minutes early and the partner i was going to speak to was busy. i was prepared. oh my god, i was so freaking prepared. i had typed out answers to all the "standard" interview questions (six godamn pages. no joke) as well as scripting my more humerous anecdotes about working in the funeral, the church, as a cater-waiter, as a nanny... it was all there. plus i had cocooned myself in the most noiseless section of the house where i had a comfortable amount of note-taking room and a glass of water. i went to the bathroom not once, not twice, but THRICE, in the hour leading up to it (i have a small bladder and always feel like i have to go when i get nervous) (too much information, i know, sorry. I'm just including it for jounalistic integrity...)
oh yeah, and i felt like a total asshole having to ask the secretary the name of the office and the name of the partner i would be speaking to, but you see, thanks to online applications no one had actually told me what kind of work i would be doing, or even the name of the office where i'd be doing it.
anyway, back to the script, so mr so and so gets on the line and says "hello grace, i'm incredibly swamped so let's keep this brief." not even a breath where i could agree or make a sound or even say hello before he continues "i see you've recently graduated cum laude from depaul university." (pause)
what the fuck? is that a question? "yes, i just finsihed up my bachelor's in english" should i have said more? been funnier? i had no idea that would be my only chance to sell myself. it wasn't on the freaking script i wrote!! it wasn't even one of the interview questions!!!
(pause) (awkwardness)
Mr so and so: "ok, i'll be honest. in reading your resume and cover letter i found myself more interested in what sort of person you would be than what sort of employee. you worked in a funeral home, a toystore, and a church all in the same year? and you went on an archeology dig? in the bahamas?"
(paper shuffling, he's i think re-reading my cover letter) i took that small pause to interject.
"yes, actually, it was pretty amazing i-"
"you were not an archeology major?"
"no, it was strictly for personal enrichment, you see-"
"interesting. okay grace. here's what i'm going to say to you: i thought your resume was funny and i was curious to speak to the sort of person who did all these fascinating things, but all of your fascinating endeavors didn't do much to give you a lot of experience in the real world, did they? and the fact of the matter is, you have a colossal amount of student debt, am i right?"
WHAT. THE. FUCK?! did my father put him up to this to remind him how shameful my youthful forays really are? how hopeless of a case i am?
"what sort of compensation are you expecting to recieve, provided i consider you for the job?"
i have no idea what sort of work i'd be doing, or what the hours would be, or where the office is or how long it would take me to get there. all things i consider before i ask for a specific amount of compensation. and, in retrospect, i should have said these things to him, and maybe that's what he was looking for, but at this point i was so rattled i said:
"well mr. so and so, i understand i don't have a lot of legal experience and i know i'd have start out at the bottom, and i'm totally fine with that. i'm more interested in gaining experience than anything else"
"so that i could waste my time teaching you for minimum wage and then have you take all my time and effort with you when you go work for a firm that pays more?"
"i'm asking $12/hr or 22K to start."
(silence. dead awkward silence. shit)
"okay grace well i'll have my sercretary call you if we want to set up an interview, but like i said i have over 200 resumes sitting on my desk... have a great day." click
and that was it. seriously. then i threw up. well, just in mouth a little...
what could i have done differently? how did i fuck that up? so bad? i called at 12:43 and hung up at 12:49. seriously. he barked a bunch of statements at me and then hung-up on me. i hate this shit. tell me someone else is in a similar boat, or better yet, knows someone who's hiring...
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