The Interviews: part 1

I shan't bore you with the details of my holiday, but I will share with you that it involved me staying up till 4am the night before my interview and a meeting with a bank manager just before my interview, where I managed to drive to the wrong branch, and then when I did get to the right branch the stupid idiot kept me waiting for 15 minutes whilst he was alone in his office doing nothing; and then when he did see me he managed to cancel my check card instead of authorising it, which delayed me even more. But thankfully I managed to get back to the hotel, have a shower, get dressed in suit and tie, and be sitting casually in the lobby with my Blackberry and my resume by about a quarter to 12, looking cool and none the worse for my very late night. 12 O'Clock. 12.05 12.10 12.15 Bloody hell where is she? I have her email on my Blackberry so I send her a casual email.

"hi there, I'm here, are you coming, call me!"

sort of email. Nothing. I email my wife (6pm in London). Can she go on my computer and find an old email from this lady because I know its got her cell number on it. I google the number for the local pharmacy of the chain and give them a call. Do they know the number for my contact? No. Do they have a number for their local Pharmacy Recruiter? They do and I call and leave a message. Then my wife emails me the number. Then I get an email back from the first one I sent to the lady which goes something like

"Dear Steven, stuck somewhere else, have contacted local recruiter who will interview you, he will be in touch!".

Hmmm.. well, I'm in pro-active mood now so I make an assumption that if her email is x.y@ then his will be a.b@ so I send him an email introducing myself, giving the hotels number and my room number, and I go upstairs and email my wife. 10 minutes later I get the call. Yes, he's very local, yes, he's happy to meet me, yes, he'll be here in 20 minutes. I go back down to the lobby with my resume and Blackberry and try to look casual. In he comes, big smile, shake hands, sit down. He says that because all the American graduates want to go to live in places like Boca once they graduate, he has never seen a foreign pharmacy graduate before. The plan is to talk about my resume, he'll tell me about the company, and then he'll report to the original lady. Luckily I have a fairly interesting resume. I've done a lot more than just be a pharmacist, and within pharmacy I've done a lot more than just manage branches, so not only did we have a lot to talk about, he was genuinely interested in it too! Then as promised he told me about the company, and the reasons i might want to work there. I should add that before he had turned up I had already found out when the company began and how many stores it currently had over what an area, so I could (and did) impress him with my obvious knowledge in the company - do YOUR homework people!! --interlude: For a non American professional to get an H1B visa over a US citizen it must be proven that no US citizen wants that job. The employer is therefore required to post sufficient signs in certain places stating the details of the offered job, and details of the foreign graduate who is applying for it should no one American come forward (or so I believe). Therefore, I now understand that I probably made a fatal mistake in my original application with CVS in stating my preferred area as Boca Raton, Florida - where every rich kids goes for the summer, and every graduate pharmacist wants to be. Either be vague and say "anywhere in Florida" or find out exactly where a company needs pharmacists and mention those places specifically. -- The interview must have gone well because at the end the man said as far as he was concerned he was very happy to tell my recruiter that she should go ahead any take me, and we shook hands, and I emailed my wife the delayed, but eventually good news. Next up, California. Farmacyst