US Foodservices in Menomonee Falls wants to hire me on temporarily and that could potentially turn into a full-time gig. They want to start me at $14/hr 32 hours a week. The commute's gonna suck, but hey, at least it's a job in my field and I haven't resorted to working at Wal-Mart. The funny thing is, I didn't even apply with them. A woman at Manpower in Menomonee found my resume on Careerbuilder and thought I'd be a good fit for a temp-job with US Foods. So, I went in and got registered at the office, hoping to hear something back. That was over a week ago. During that time I decided I would also register at the Manpower office in Milwaukee. I did the whole shebang and I even took some assessment tests. Turns out that I'm proficient in Microsoft Word and Excel. Who knew? Then I played the waiting game and kept applying to other positions and even internships.
Well, a few days passed and I was feeling pretty low about being jobless when suddenly, last Friday I got an email from the CD at Discovery World. She apparently found some of my work on Coroflot and said they had a design position open that wasn't being posted publicly. They were only approaching people who they felt had a similar vision to their own (or by referral). Naturally, I was quite flattered that yet another person found my work on the ol' interweb and wanted to interview me. So, I emailed her back saying that I'd like to interview, and come Monday she scheduled me to come in. I spent the whole day making a minibook to leave behind and I sliced my finger pretty bad with an exacto knife, but with a little elbow grease, a visit to kinko's, and a stop at the hardware store, I was able to produce a pretty snazzy looking leave-behind for about 5 bucks.
Then I went to the interview on Tuesday at 10:00. I got a haircut, clipped my fingernails again, and made sure to have cologne, hand sanitizer, mouthwash and Wisps in the car. I had a few smokes on the way and then proceeded to sanitize the hell out of myself. I even swallowed some Scope for good measure. The interview was rather short, and out of all the questions, being asked if I was afraid of heights was probably the strangest. The CD said she had about 10 other candidates to interview, but would let me know her decision by Friday, which is tomorrow.
Later that day, I had a talent assessment at C2 Graphics Productivity Solutions. They basically assess people on their ability with Adobe programs and then add the talented ones to their pool and farm them out to employers. Sadly, I did pretty badly at Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign and I completely bombed on Dreamweaver and Flash. However, the gentleman who assessed me was very kind and even gave me a few pointers (even though he wasn't supposed to). He basically made me feel good about being bad, which is strange, but I had a good time anyway. I may try back there in a few months after some needed practice.
So, the next day I had an interview at the Milwaukee Public Museum for an Exhibits Internship. Sadly, it isn't a paid position, but I figured I'd give it a shot anyways. The guy I met with seemed to like me and I had a lot of good answers. Though unpaid, it seems like it would be a really cool job. I'd be helping construct exhibits and making plaster molds of skulls. You know, cool shit like that. I also showed him my portfolio and he was impressed enough to bring it over to their graphic designer to show him. Surprisingly, the designer had absolutely no negative feedback to give me. He seemed to genuinely like my work and he even pitched the idea of me doing a double internship, one on exhibits and one on graphic design. Needless to say, the idea makes me ecstatic. I know I wouldn't get paid, but I'd get to work on some really cool projects with some really cool people. And who knows, it could turn into some type of permanent employment if I did a good job.
After the interview, I was given a visitor's wristband and allowed to tour the museum for free. Seriously, the Milwaukee Public Museum makes the Science Museum of Minnesota look like a tourist trap. This place was incredible. While I was in the butterfly sanctuary, I got a call back from Manpower about the US Foodservice job. It turns out that they no longer needed me to fill the temp position because the guy that was gone came back. But, they were so impressed with my resume that they want to hire me on, even though they haven't seen my portfolio! I'm supposed to start on Monday at 8:45, which I'm going to if I don't hear back from Discovery World. My point is that things have really turned around. Right now I'm looking at 4 potential jobs, 2 which aren't paid, and one that's a ways away. So I really have to do some thinking right now. If I'm offered a position at Discovery World, that decision will become much harder. I wish I could just work all of these jobs. It's funny, you can be jobless for months while your searching and then one day, poof, you have your pick between 4. Life's funny.
My advice, send out thank you letters and make leave-behinds. Study the career books, but don't over-study. The big thing is being confident and honest and trying to get along with the interviewer. It also doesn't hurt to have a solid portfolio and resumes that are designed nicely and printed on quality paper. I've wasted nearly a hundred dollars printing crap off at Kinko's, but hey, you gotta spend money to make money.
