9.19.2007

oh please oh please oh please

Yesterday morning's interview went well. It was a full on tech interview, and 100% in French. There were some shaky spots where I wasn't really sure I was being clear, but the interviewer really helped me along by asking questions and I think we had ourselves a decent interview. There's a couple of things I wanted to talk about.

On my French resumé, I wrote on there that I lived in France for two years. I feel this is a subtle way of saying that I don't just speak French from a book I learned, but rather I have a working knowledge of the way French people speak French. I feel that while it's not flawless, my French is more authentic than someone who just learned it from a book; I've picked up mannerisms, the way to stress syllables, and the way to put your tone into what you say that communicates feeling just as much as words. My interviewer asked me why I spent two years in France. I'm acutely aware of how the French treat 'new' religion, and very often the Church is viewed in a bad light. However, I'm not going to back down and so I told him straightforward it was for a religious mission. He responded favorably, even asking further questions about what I did all day, what Church I belong to, and it came out that he actually lived down the street from a Chapel in his hometown. I hope that he can see my mission for the good that it was and not a crusade to brainwash his compatriots to believe in an American cult. I think he's level headed enough to do it.

So now, at the end of the interview, he says it's time for me to take a test. I was braced for a technical set of questions, but I guess he garnered what he needed from the Q&A session about my projects and work experience. This test is the dreaded personality test. 100 questions of 3 and 4 statements such as:

1.) I make friends easily
2.) I'm relatively unstable emotionally
3.) I work hard regardless of the obstacles
4.) I prefer to stay away from large groups

I had to select the statement that represented me the most and the statement that represented me the least. After about 40 of these things, all in French mind you, and being up for 14 hours yesterday, my head began to swim. Normally I'm not prone to do well on these sorts of tests; I've failed 3 of them before that I know of. "Fail." I put answers that led the company I wanted to work for to believe that I was not a good fit, despite the preamble declaring there are no correct or incorrect answers. So I'm nervous. I sent it off last night at 11:00 PM so that he'd have it in his inbox first thing in the morning. I haven't heard back, but he did say he was going out of town.

Say a prayer for me. I really want this job.

2 comments:

Kermit~the~Frog said...

Yippity Skippity! Jiminy Crickets! That's KEE-RAZY! And totally WyyyyyyyyyELD!

Chance said...

good luck bro :)