On Flying a US Airline

I am back from an interview in Boston, MA.

They put me on a one-stop flight from YYZ to BOS. The stop-over was in Philly. Big mistake. Actually the 1st mistake was accepting this flight instead of insisting on a direct flight to Boston. But the company had already paid for the flight when they e-mailed me the itinerary and I did not want to fuss over it.

When I got to the airport I got the first shock: US airlines now charge $15 for each piece of luggage checked in. Luckily I had every thing packed in one carry-on bag.

On my first stop on Philly my departure flight to Boston was delayed 45 minutes while burning gas on the tarmac. As the plane left the gate at the prescribed hour it was reported as "on time". This sounds like a nice scam to me.

On my way back in Boston the airplane has taxied for 90 minutes wandering thru various places of the BOS; I think they were sightseeing. They said there was a "security issue" at Philly and they were not departing. To add insult to injury they said they burned to much fuel and may have to return to gate for refueling.

A frequent flier told me that nowadays airlines only carry the minimum legal amount of fuel. This reckless stinginess may lead to some problems in the future.

Eventually we departed. When we touched down in Philly we kinda hanged around on the tarmac as they had to cross TWO active airstrips in order to get to the gate. Half an hour of this. Kind of idiotic traffic planning IMNSHO.

Again we departed "on time" but we waited in a queue of 32 planes for about 45 minutes. Another example of brilliant airport planning.

So I arrived in Toronto one hour late. I am told that this is very common with US airlines. And I thought that Air Canada sucked big.

-ulianov

P.S. I wasted seven hours travelling each way on something that could have been a 90 minutes flight. Next time I shall not let myself be talked into such a crappy deal.

Market Volatility Hits Recruiter

I had a phone interview scheduled for today by recruiter X from a Massachusetts agency. The hiring manager did not call so I phoned X first on his agency number (no answer), then on his cell number.

X answered and told me he's no longer with the agency as of today. Bummer. I am in limbo with nobody able to reschedule my interview. I phoned the hiring company and left a voice message for the hiring manager.

Here I was thinking: wow! things must be quite in turmoil in the US if I get the rug pulled from under my feet like this. This is the last thing I would expect from a recruiter.

Eventually the hiring manager phoned; after the interview I managed to get thru to a replacement recruiter.

-ulianov

The Two Heavy-Weight Interview Questions

The two make-or-break non-technical questions I encountered in interviews so far were:
1. What is your dream job?
2. Where do you see yourself [your career] in five years?

So far I gave honest and direct answers; most of the time it has worked out good for me as long there was some inter-personal chemistry with the interviewer. Lately I learned that actually you should not do so.

B.O. of Norwood, MA wrote a preparatory e-mail for my interview with a company in Maynard, MA. Here is what he put in writing:

Don't fall for the "Dream Job" question! Managers will often ask about your ideal position. Your answer should be a paraphrased version of the description for the job for which you are interviewing. Otherwise, the manager may assume that you are not interested in their job.

Over the phone he added that if the candidate sets out goals that are far-fetched and he/she does not have the skills for it then he cannot assess himself correctly and therefore is unfit for the current job.

Also there is a latent fear that if the dream job is more than is being offered the candidate will take off at the first opportunity.

The exact same reasoning applies for the second question. The same answer should be applied.

My own take: this is BS by the truckload as people change jobs [in my profession] every three years and they always want more if they can get it. But as with many other things one must learn to play this part to the correct tune in order to go over the hump.

-ulianov

A Nice Chat with a Romanian Recruiter

From time to time I get calls from Romania as I left my Resume posted there to test the waters and keep an eye on the job market.

E.S. of Bucharest, Romania seems like a nice fellow endowed with a sense of humour (this is not something readily available in the recruiters populace). I shot back a short e-mail at him asking for pay level and letting him know I have this blog.

Here's an approximate translation of what he replied:

[...] Judging from the number of talks you've had with recruiters one could say you are a quasi-pro candidate :)

The reasons why I haven't given you more details about the payment level at this stage of our conversation are:
1. the employer only gave us a range, not a fixed number; the actual number is negotiated directly between employer and candidate according to your level of experience and according to the pay scale of the respective company. [...]
2. the specificity of the Romanian job market (rather chaotic with significant pay variations for equivalent positions between similar companies and even within the same company). The salaries are supposed to be confidential so they never get published on a job posting unlike the Western Europe and N America where the market is well-structured and one can speak of a "market level".

Well I've been at this for 10 years so I am a pro altho this blog only extends six months in the past.

He provided me with good insight on things that happen back in Romania: nothing much has changed in eight years; employers still rip you off at every turn (think of the intra-company wild pay level variations).

The only thing I don't have an answer for is whether employees are still treated like property or garbage as it happened 10 years ago. This should have improved because of the massive work-force drain towards the Western Europe at the end of 2006 but you never know.

-ulianov

Recruiters have Problems with HR Drones Too!

I was talking to B.O. of Norwood, MA who's a fine recruiter. He was trying to submit me for a position in Maynard, MA. He was insisting that I add some lines to my Resume to stress my experience with "x86, SMP and TCP/IP".

Now my Resume speaks loud and clear about these topics and I explained to him why. However he was still insisting and eventually admitted that he has to go thru a HR person and he wanted that monkey (my description, not his) to recognize the keywords he/she was looking for.

Aha, so recruiters can be as frustrated by HR monkeys as everybody else. And they soo deserve it ;)

-ulianov