Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 19:46:13 -0400
From: Kafka Dreams 
To: void
Subject: mama never told me there'd be a maze like this


When I first got hired at BBN, a ways back before we were the
GTE-rocket-ship-powered-by-BBN-swallowed-by-Bell-Atlantic, it was just
after sending credits back to NJ for graduation purposes.  But I was
24 with 7+ years in the workforce behind me.  Mostly small-town or
University jobs, which meant little corporate exposure, but lots of
salt-o-the-earth experience (READ: gruntwork).

It was obvious to me that people with experience got jobs and people
who volunteered to do crap got experience.  The trick was to get in
the door and impress the interviewers with a steady track record and a
creative approach to getting things done.

O, the inexhaustible wisdom of youth.

But I had no idea how to get in the door, so I talked to headhunters
and friends and their management-type buddies.  And, following their
advice, I polished my resume and I wrote cover letters.

LOTS of cover letters.

Very nice, very boring cover letters.

I did this because I was told "that's the way it's done - NO ONE READS
THEM, but you HAVE to write them."

None of the companies I wrote to (and forwarded my resume) responded.

Then one day I read BBN's ad.  It had lots of "we want creative
people" and "we will educate you" kinds of propaganda in it and they
sounded like they meant it (and, in fact, way back then they did).

So I started my cover letter the way I'd started the others and then
explained that cover letters were boring and what I really wanted was
to be hired someplace that would teach me because I loved learning and
solving problems and I thought the Internet was really interesting.

(I said it with a bit more professionalism than that, but not much.)

So they interviewed me.  I was intimidated all to hell and back, but I
held my own and answered the questions I could and admitted to the
ones I didn't know.

Then they startled me by implying that they were going to offer me a
job and asking how much I wanted.  I offered an area, about 2K more
than my than my other job offers and they gave me more than that and
boom, I started working at BBN as a "controller" (network operator).

Much later, I was told that my cover-letter got me hired.

(My interview went well, but they were all struck by my cover letter
and remembered it vividly.  And once I got over my shyness, they liked
me a lot too and were vindicated by their gut instincts.)

Since then, I've interviewed people and been informally interviewed
for different positions around the company and talked to people about
interviewing and read lots of articles and "Ask us!" columns and I can
say only one thing about "how to get hired" and that's There Are No
Absolutes.

People love and hate and don't-always-like-depending-on-the-person
interesting cover letters, salary demands, desperate-to-leave-my-job
please-let-me-work-for-you loyalty, long resumes, short resumes,
multi-page resumes, big type, small type, no mention of salary, big
salary demands, salary ranges, aggressive "thank you" letters, no
"thank you" letters, follow-up calls, too-firm handshakes, too-soft
handshakes, suits, no suit, sneakers, fancy shoes, long hair, short
hair, neat hair, frizzy hair, anything and everything.

Some HR departments suck, others are great, some technical people are
lousy interviewers, some just rock, some managers are weasels, some
heroes, most somewhere inbetween.

I say this: bathe ahead of time, stand straight, dress neatly, look
people in the eye, be honest but charming as hell, fill out all forms
completely, and ask about their expectations of your participation.

If they can't deal with that, fuck 'em.  Life's too short to be
aggravated by trying to fix their broken system once you've nested in
the middle of it, unless yr a sick fool like me who craves that sort
of thing.  In which case, yr doomed.

Kelly J.