The Job Search Chronicle

[MLD]

I'm going to chronicle my job search efforts here :). For the record I'm looking for a job in the insurance industry in the NYC area.

Well, I finished my resume on tuesday and saw an online posting for a medium-sized insurance company in NJ that was hiring for the position I want. I decided to apply online. 2 days later (today) I got a call from someone in their HR department. I was actually at home sick and woken by her call which was a bit annoying as I was pretty unprepared for the phone call. However when she asked if I had time to speak I said yes (cause calling back would only lead to difficulties and besides, I really had nothing else going on). We talked for about 5 minutes about my resume and it went okay. I started out talking fluently but had some blocks in the middle. At one point she asked me a question about my test scores and before I could get out my 2nd score (I was blocking somewhat bad) she moved on to another question. I thought about mentioning my stutter (which she obviously noticed) but I didn't. At the end of the phone call she mentioned she'd pass my resume along to the department I wanted to work in and after they looked it over she'd get back to me next week.

Hopefully my speech didn't affect things too much. I guess I will see next week when/if they call back. The lady I talked to seemed super friendly which certainly helped me feel more at ease.

In the meantime I have some connections at other insurance companies in the area and I'm going to send my resume to them through the people I know. Hopefully I'll get some interviews in the coming weeks (which I will talk about here) and eventually a new job!

Feel free to comment or give advice or anything of that sort if you want.

[hafidmetal]

wish you goood luck man:)..

[MLD]

Well I have some good news...

1st off, that initial phone interview didn't lead to me getting called back at all :(. Somehow I think my stuttering took me out of consideration for that position (but ya never know, maybe they just had more qualified people to interview).

However a few weeks ago I had my 1st in-person job interview. Like I had mentioned, I had a connection at an insurance company and after passing along my resume I got a call from a very high-up person at the company. We talked briefly and he said someone else would call me to setup a time for me to come in for an interview. Soon thereafter I got that call from a super nice lady and we setup a time for me to come in and she scheduled me to interview w/ 5 people. Needless to say I was anything but looking forward to it, but I figured the only way to get better at this interview thing was to go on a few of them. I got dressed up as best I could and ventured to the offices (pretty nervous at this point). My 1st "interview" was w/ the initial person who called me, it wasn't really an interview, just kind of chatted w/ him about their business and the program I was interviewing for. Went pretty well. 2nd interview was w/ the 2nd person who called me who as previously stated was super nice and that also went really well (I'm amazingly talking reasonably fluent at this point). 3rd interview was w/ a manager type, very nice guy, got hit w/ some real interview questions but nothing too bad. 4th interview was w/ a younger girl who seemed nervous. She didn't make much eye contact which made me even more nervous. My speech went pretty downhill at this point but I did my best. Last interview was w/ another manager type and I was pretty sure this was where I entirely blew the interview. I stuttered somewhat bad and instead of getting to finish answering the somewhat difficult questions, he just went on to talk about other things. Overall i was pretty pleased w/ how I did, the last 2 interviews could have gone better but I was out of practice and I did the best I could. They said they'd get in touch w/ me in the next few weeks and I figured I'd either not hear from them or hear some bad news. Not that I did terrible or was unqualified but it is a very big and well-known company so I'm sure they had a lot of applicants who were most likely more-qualified than me even discounting the fact that I stutter. Amazingly enough last week I got a phone call and a job offer! I am stoked! Of course now I am nervous, leaving the comfort zone of my last job to a new job that will probably require more communication :(. It's a huge step in the right direction for my future though! I just wanted to share my story cause I know a lot of people out there are having a tough time finding jobs. There are people and companies out there who will look past your obvious deficiencies and take a chance on you! You just have to go find them!

[Box of Clocks]

Congratulations on getting the job. Seems like you did really well especially considering that you had to go through five interview stages.

[Cujo]

Congratulations on the job offer :D Considering that this was the first interview of your job hunt I think that you did amazingly well. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[DKoz]

COngrats! Whats your position in the company?

[MLD]

COngrats! Whats your position in the company?

Actuarial Assistant. Which sounds kinda lame actually, but it's really not.

[DKoz]

Actuarial Assistant. Which sounds kinda lame actually, but it's really not.

Yeah you have to be good at math to be a actuary.