My "Not an Interview"

Job search follow up the job I applied for in November.  I went in a couple weeks ago for the interview, which turned out unexpectedly to be a group interview with the HR person and 4 people in the department.  Because it's a government job, they did the typical "ask the questions written on the piece of paper and give nothing away in response to what candidates say" thing.  It actually went OK except I had to admit to not knowing anything about one of the questions (which later googling revealed was a specific assessment used by the state, oops).  But otherwise, I felt pretty comfortable with my responses and my ability to connect with the interviewers (at least, as well as I feel I can in that sort of situation). 

And apparently I did OK because I was called by HR to come in for an "informal" meeting, "not an interview," with people in the department.  Not sure what to expect from that, but I had visions of trying to make small talk with people for an hour and a half, which is not exactly my favorite thing, though my basic strategy of asking people about themselves, their experiences and impressions, etc. would probably see me through.  The "not an interview" thing was odd, but perhaps this was just a final evaluation before they decide whether to offer me a job.  As my mom put it, they want to be sure I pass the Umbrella Test -- a kind of sanity check whose name alludes to perhaps the craziest (non-academic) job interview situation I've taken part in.  (The story is that when I was working at a psychiatric research center, we were interviewing research assistants.  When one of my co-workers went down to meet this one candidate, she saw that the candidate had left her umbrella lying next to her chair, so she said, "Be sure to remember your umbrella."  To which the candidate replied, "I am perfectly capable of remembering where I left my umbrella!"  After the interview, my co-worker told the rest of us this story, commenting that she wished she could have just thanked the woman for her time and dismissed her on the spot since we obviously couldn't hire someone like that.)

Anyway, when I showed up yesterday, I was surprised and utterly delighted that instead of the dreaded "walking around meeting people and talking to them" thing I was expecting, I was invited to participate in the team's normal data review meeting -- somebody had recently analyzed some data and everybody was going to look at it, discuss it, etc.  Sweet!  I would much rather talk to potential colleagues about data than just about anything else.  It was actually a really, really smart idea for the hiring manager to do this, I think -- it was a sort of trial run for what it would be like for us all to work together.  They got to see how I process and talk about data, how I interact with a group, etc., and I got to check them out too.  The hour and a half flew by. 

Oh, and it was also totally great that the hiring manager sort of prefaced the meeting by saying to me that it's clear I have the right skills, and that I can easily learn the details/data/content as I go.  Yes, finally, somebody seems to get it that having years of Specific Ditch experience is not the most important consideration when hiring a research analyst!

The way we left things was that she was going to talk to the team and they should have a decision by the end of the week.  I'm feeling pretty hopeful.

In other job search news, I got a call yesterday afternoon to interview next week for an analyst position with a state agency.  So things are moving along.