I am NOT SWISS and I DON'T SOUND SWISS either!

i had a telephone interview with a company in sheffield. richard p. from infineon works there now and he forwarded my CV to the people responsible for doling out jobs ;-)

they seemed impressed with my experience and knowledge. you can really tell the difference: at interviews in switzerland the people doing the interviewing have been to the eth themselves and aren't particularly impressed, cause they've been there, done that and bought the t-shirt. in the uk, they aren't so jaded and can still appreciate that the stuff we're taught here and the practical stuff we do is pretty unique. annoying jaded swiss engineers!

i wasn't very well prepared though. my mum made some comments about how i shouldn't be looking for a job in the uk, and if i absolutely have to get a job in the uk, why not 'that company youu were at before'. and anyway, 'dad says the field you're looking for a job in is very narrow', i.e. why don't you become a computer programmer like i wanted all along...

so i was not in the mood for an interview. i was feeling more like applying for a full-time job at mcdonald's or jumping off a cliff just to spite her... or getting a job in sheffield, it seems like a nice distance from her...

and then they asked some questions where i just thought 'how can they possibly be asking what it sounds like they're asking, that's just too simple. the simple answer can't be the one they're looking for' and didn't answer at all. of course the simple answer was the right one. as usual, well done vicky...

after the interview i had kiwo (kinder woche, kids' week). i've agreed to help out with one of the workshops. so i'm spending an hour a day helping kids make cards. how on earth did i let myself get stuck here?!

my friend who's in charge of this particular workshop got the times mixed up and arrived 5 minutes late. the kids arrived 5 minutes early... so i spent 10 minutes freaking out, going mumbling under my breath about killing alexandra. the problem wasn't only that i simply cannot deal with kids (although that's a huge one to be going on with anyway), but that we'd been given the model for how to make the cards yesterday and alexandra took it home to work it out. so i had no clue what we were meant to be doing... i got them started colouring things in and eventually she arrived and took charge of the annoying boy who was not impressed with the colouring in. instead i got the timid one who was too timid and indecisive to do anything other than colouring in, so i pretty much did all of her card for her. ok, i can see why she claimed she couldn't draw palm trees: at the end she drew some waves (copied them after i drew them on a piece of scrap paper for her). they weren't really wavey, more like jagged... and she's coming back tomorrow to finish the card off! oh noooo! i really don't do well with kids...

Labels: interviews, job search, kids - arrgghh

i woke up this morning to a loud, confusing noise. well, when i say woke up i mean got up, or perhaps stood up. because i certainly wasn't awake! i lurched towards the bathroom, passing the source of the aggravating racket. it had to be stopped. my hand reached out, lifted the receiver and slammed it right back down again, never even breaking (my admittedly lurching) stride.

until... i woke up. and realised what i'd just done! oh crap, i hope it wasn't important...

i went back to bed and woke up again to the sound of the door bell ringing. still slightly befuddled, i initially thought it was the phone again. 'i'm not going to get it, i might slam it down again, best just to let it ring.' my brain doesn't really work properly until an hour or two after i've got up. by the time i realised it was the door bell this time, i couldn't be bothered to get up. 'anyway, i'm in my pyjamas. and it's probably just one of my sister's friends and she's away anyway...' were my more or less lucid rationalisations.

eventually whoever it was gave up and left.

this guy from the insurance company phoned up and went on and on at me about something and insisted i take a message for mum. i hope i can decipher it when she comes home, cause he himself wasn't particularly coherent and my writing is bad to start with, but when some german guy is mumbling at you down the phone at top speed, it starts looking rather hieroglyphic...

a friend of mine who works for a recruiting company phoned to give me some tips on my CV. that was the one good phone call today ;-)

then some woman trying to sell burglar alarms phoned up. i've had her on the line before. it's getting annoying. she did mention that she'd tried to phone this morning and not reached anyone... that cheered me up a bit :-)

i'm surprised the woman from the piano tuning company hasn't phoned again. yet. i should probably run away in case she does ;-)

i'm off to try fistball. hope i don't break anything...

Labels: fistball, i'm special, job search

much less traumatic than the last one ;-)

although the zvv website tried to send me on a train that doesn't exist this time... luckily there was a different train going to the right place so i caught that and then had to run to catch the bus cause the actual train was slower than the mythical one i'd planned to take... ah well.

in spite of the zvv's nasty tricks i managed to get there half an hour early, so i had a wander round. it's quite nice, right by the woods, lots of green, so lunchtime wanders look good again :-)

the people interviewing me were all very nice, and if they'd read my blog they seem to have ignored it, cause there were no weird questions :-)

and the job sounds great, much better than the other one: challenging and interesting, but slightly less scary responsibility. i want it! :-)

they want me to sleep on it and let them know on friday whether i'm interested or not. i'm interested!!! gimme gimme! :-)

the two engineers who interviewed me have both been at the eth and know both of my supervisors and want to get a reference from them. i hope h recommends me...

Labels: interviews, job search

hope it goes better than the last one ;-) as long as these people haven't read my blog, it could hardly not go better... ;-)

i'm so nervous! wish me luck!

Labels: job search

ah well. i guess it wasn't meant to be. it was probably too much responsibility for me anyway... oh dear, this means more embarrassing interviews. scary. but nobody gets the first job they interview for anyway (i mean normal people, not super overachievers).

if they had offered it to me i'd have freaked out trying to work out whether it really was the job for me, whether there wasn't something much better just round the corner. and i'd have seriously wondered about them if they had offered me the job after the pitiful performance i put up at the interview... it was not good.

so all is well.

but it's still vaguely depressing :-(
meh.

Labels: job search

i've fixed my eth webpage. i've taken out the links to this blog, cause as far as i know it was the only way that linked my blog to my full name. it's the only way i've ever found my blog (indirectly) though google by typing in my name.

i know it's compromising my integrity as a freak who doesn't care who reads what on her blog, but it was just too weird. they asked me whether my second project went badly because i disliked the professor! i didn't realise where they got that random idea until the third interviewer told me she'd read the blog. then it became clear to me that they must also have read the eth page where i'd said i didn't recommend doing a project under that professor. i've taken it out now, more compromising... but the reason i specified the professor was that there are two professors in that lab with two completely different fields and i only have experience with the one and i don't know what the field's called...

the only criticism i have (other than the fact that he complained after our presentation that he hadn't understood how PLLs worked because we only explained them very quickly, assuming everyone else in that room knew more about PLLs than us anyway, and especially him, since we'd taken the diagrams out of his lecture notes!!!) is that his english is really horrible! every fifty or so swiss people, you come across one who sounds as if he were still speaking swiss german, when really it's meant to be english. and that professor's one of them. *shudders* but other than that, i have absolutely no reason to dislike him (and even for me that's to ridiculous a reason to actually dislike a person. he can't help being linguistically challenged...)

so anyway, from now on i hope not to have to field such bizarre-seeming questions at any job interviews i might have. trying hard not to think about the last one. still a week to go until i find out! gaaah!!!

Labels: i'm special, job search, uni

i had this interview on tuesday (my first proper interview ever!) and the more i think about it, the more i'm convinced i screwed up! it started badly, with me ending up half way across the county/kanton a quarter hour before the interview was meant to start. stupid online timetable sent me on a train that doesn't go to dübendorf!!! luckily i'd planned in half an hour of wandering around lost, so i was only quarter of an hour late in the end. and thank goodness cecile told me how to get into the building (she had an interview there for a different job) cause not finding my way in just might have finished me off at that point ;-) luckily the last thing i'd done before leaving the house was to write down the number, so i was able to give them advance warning. they were very nice about it, but i can't believe i was late to the interview!!! me who's early everywhere (except to lectures of course *g*)!!!

anyway, i don't think i came across as particularly bright ;-) and to round things off, they'd read my blog! in particular the last post. as i posted it, i thought it might not be the best of ideas. ah well, what's life without a little risk every now and then ;-)

anyway, i'm now on tenterhooks, waiting for them to let me know what they've decided. i was surprised myself, but they didn't say 'sorry for wasting your time, but...'

the job sounds fabulous! it'd be so cool! difficult and challenging, but really fascinating :-) and it's near zürich :-)

help! i can't take the supense!

and now i don't dare post this for fear they might read it and think i'm trying to suck up or something. arrgh! grow up vicky!
*smacks self on head and clicks 'publish post'*

Labels: arrgghh, getting lost, i'm special, job search

i've been asked by some person from some recruiting company to send her more detailed information than i had in my CV so far about my university projects. i managed to cobble together something more or less sensible about the first one, but then i really enjoyed that one and did well in it too.

the second one is not going so well. this is my first draft:

it was crap. using simulink, which is crap. and the results were crap. but luckily the professor was too clueless to realise... crap

it's ok like that, isn't it?

Labels: i'm special, job search, uni

monster's just sent me it's weekly collection of jobs i might be interested in. it's definitely getting better at deciding what i'd like. but the latest one made me laugh: the actual title of the job:

Microelectronic designer (incl company car)

are they trying to employ a company car? ;-)

Labels: bizarre, chuckles, job search

i'm not well, i think i've got the flu or something. it's horrid, everything aches. i went home early after making myself concentrate hard until 5 o'clock, at which point i gave up and stumbled my way home...

while i was at lunch (before going home half dead. i had a bowl of soup and a cup of tea, my poor throat was most grateful) some guy from this international recruitment agency (based in the UK but specialising in placing people in switzerland :-s) sent me an email saying he'd seen my impressive (no kidding *g*) profile on monster.ch and was looking forward to hearing from me.

the last time i got a message like that i freaked and didn't go back on xing for over a month. in fact, i only went back on again properly this week, and i got the message in november... i'm a very special individual. the reason i freaked was that it sounded like the guy had a a job to fill that would really suit me. if it had been some random thing i really didn't want to do, i'd just have ignored it or written back 'thanks, but no thanks' or whatever. but because it sounds like a real opportunity, i go nuts and bury my head in the sand... well done vicky!

so this time i resolved to answer it like the normal, sensible adult that i refuse to be. but cause i was feeling so awfully icky i thought i'd put it off till tomorrow. that's not too late to answer, 24 hours later, is it?

after brewing myself another cuppa and escaping from stephie (she was bored, i'd've been happy to play with her, but since any sound was causing the jack-hammers in my head to rev up another level, and i just wanted to be horizontal, i couldn't take it for long) i crawled into bed. heaven! but of course i got bored quite quickly and thought it might be a good idea to send ouot a text to the girsl in my small group asking what time they want to come round next monday, since only one of them has answered the email i sent. got out my phone and saw 'new voice-mail' flashing. :-s who could that be? it's the guy, calling from the uk! he's eager! is that normal?

of course i couldn't relax after that (i did try, lay there for another quarter of an hour, but it just wouldn't work), so i got up to draft my reply. as usual, i'm stuck. on the first line. meh. what's the form, eh? he wrote 'Hello Ms G'. do i answer 'Hello Mr S'?

so i've been researching it badly. i haven't yet found anything to help me with this specific question. but have got bogged down in loads of great (-looking) sites with helpful tips on interviewing and general looking for jobs.

here they are:

• i got most of the starting links from brazen careerist. she's written a load of great posts on loads of work- and life-related subjects :-)


• hr world interviewing cheat sheet 100 resources for interviewers and candidates


• 64 interview questions with explanations of hidden traps, and how best to answer


• tips for job seekers tips on interviewing


• monster career advice


• wetfeet.com haven't really looked at this one properly yet, but at first glance it looks good :)


• careeronestop.org


• about.com: job searching

my head is killing me. i'm gonna have a whack at that stupid letter and then go back to bed. thanks for the tips, pij! oh yes, thomas too :-)

Labels: i'm special, job search, links, sicky vicky