MY SECOND INTERVIEW

On Wednesday morning I had my second interview for the position of Director of Readiness and Response with the GR chapter of the Red Cross. I was interviewed by the same people from my first interview, the Chief Executive Officer and the Volunteer and Employee Manager. The interview started at 1000 and morphed into lunch, as there were some local business people who came by to grab a sandwich and get a tour of the Red Cross facility. By the time lunch and the tour was over, it was close to 1PM, and the CEO wanted to ask me a few more questions. The interview was over at 1:30PM, so I immediately went home to wake up our dog, who was quietly sleeping in his kennel.

The Employee Manager told me before I left that they had received over 100 applicants for this position, but she also said, "We had people who were line cooks apply for this position. They were clearly not qualified to do this job!" From this pool of initial applicants, 8 semi-finalists were offered an interview and I found out yesterday that this field had been been pared down to 3. I was the first person to receive a second interview, and the CEO told me that the other two candidates would be interviewed before the end of the day Friday and that a hiring decision would be made sometime early next week. As most of you know, this was my first foray into interviewing for a job and I think that I was able to present myself pretty well. Of course, I had a lot of help and coaching from Deirdre, who interviews people for a living! She gave me outstanding assistance in helping me prepare for potential questions, as she literally had hundreds of questions that she has used in interviewing potential employees. Regardless of the outcome of this process, I learned a lot about myself and interviewing. It has truly been an enjoyable process!