It has been a long and challenging few months. I would like to thank all my friends and family members who prayed for me, thought of me, encouraged me, offered advice and critique for these last few months. At long last I am once again a gainfully employed member of the workforce.
I had applied for a very promising position at the Spence School a few weeks back. I got a phone call and a sort of first round phone interview that I felt pretty good about it. I have to admit, I wanted the position so bad I wasn’t really pursuing anything else beside the freelance work I’ve been doing in the meantime. I was crushed to find out I didn’t get the position. After 3 months of rejection I was finding it harder each day to continue putting myself out there.
About the middle of last week, after a lot of praying and psyching myself back up, I decided I needed to change focus again. When I first got back to the States, I quickly realized that tech jobs didn’t really want to look at me. I had plenty of experience to work on a help desk, but no certifications. I didn’t have enough experience is any particular technology to work in a higher position in IT, and still no certifications. I decided to seize this opportunity for career change and get back to my roots and pursue something in the programming field. I was lucky enough to get the internship at Klickable and find out that this is something that I really wanted to do. But again, lacking experience I didn’t have many places to start.
I picked up a few freelance gigs doing design work, and that seemed to be going well although not paying a lot. So after I lost the Spence position my plan was to look for something to pay the bills (like working at Staples, Best Buy, McDonald’s, as a Janitor, whatever) while I focused on taking gigs and building a portfolio. So I went out to Craigslist with the intention of looking for gigs. When I got there I looked at the job postings, just out of curiosity. There seemed to be a decent of amount of entry level positions and paid internships. So, by last Friday I had applied for all of them.
I missed the call for some reason on Monday, but got the voicemail. A company called Blue World Inc wanted me to come in and interview for a position they had for a Web Developer / Jr. Programmer. I scheduled the interview for Tuesday morning and promptly made an appointment for a haircut. I thought the interview on Tuesday went very well, but was still surprised when they asked me to come back the next day for a second interview to talk with the technical staff I would be working with.
I got dressed up again and took the 2 train all the way down to Wall St for my 2 o’clock appointment at 90 Broad St. I was more nervous at the second interview. I suppose I didn’t really know what to expect for the first, but it looked like I had a real chance here and I didn’t want to blow it. The second interview went great. The more I learned about the company the more I wanted the job. The position seems perfect for where I am right now career-wise. It’s a small friendly group and there’s lots of opportunity for professional growth. They know their business and enjoy it. It seemed like a group that I wanted to be a part of. I spoke with the hiring manager just before I left the office and he asked me if I would accept the position if it was offered today, to which I replied “I would gladly accept the position and start tomorrow.” He told me I would have an answer by the end of the week and I left feeling very good about the whole thing.
I had just handed in my visitors badge and walked out the front door when I got a phone call. It was Blue World. In my excitement I think I may have hung up on them. I quickly redialed and asked if they had just called. It was Jim Brock, the President, and he asked if I had left the building. I told him I had, but I hadn’t gone far. He asked me to come back up to the office. I went back up and into Jim’s office and was immediately offered the position! It has all happened so fast my head was spinning. But we agreed that I would start Monday.
So rejoice, dear friends! I turns out I won’t starve in the streets of New York City! I now have a job I think I will enjoy, at a company with a promising future, in one of the coolest parts of Manhattan! Huzzah! Thank you for all your kind congratulatory tweets and facebook messages.
