Profunksticated

Just returned home today from the first of two job interviews on consecutive business days, with the other scheduled for Monday.

I had a bad case of nerves when I walked into what is a converted warehouse in a nondescript office park. I was decked out in a brand-new blue suit with thin grey pinstripes. The dress there was casual, which made me the freaking proverbial sore thumb.

My jitters dissipated when the hiring manager of this environmental remediation firm, a guy I’ll call Tom, mentioned a glaring weakness in my resume’: I lack the hands-on, in-the-field experience he believes is needed to write the scopes of work included in the proposals the firm would submit to clients when seeking jobs. I felt relief because I really didn’t want the responsibility of having to write highly technical stuff like scopes of work. And I really didn’t want to endure the hour-each-way commute on top of the job stress. 

I told Tom that my previous position involved more coordination than actual writing. I worked with people throughout the firm to pull together the various pieces of a given proposal. I did some editing and some tailoring of relevant past project descriptions and personnel resumes’, but usually the person who would manage the proposed project would write the narrative of how the work would be done.

Once Tom told me I might not be his person for this full time position, an amazing thing happened: I found myself going into consultant mode. For instance, I mentioned that the company’s website, while clean and spare, could benefit from embedded video of some of its successful projects, complete with client testimonials. He enthusiastically agreed with my idea.

I told Tom I’ve posted some video online and would send him links. (For you readers of Profunksticated, my admittedly rudimentary video work appears on my other, less edgy blog, which I publish under my real name. Can’t give out my name here, for obvious reasons.)

And I told Tom I also could help out by providing administrative or production tasks on a short-term freelance/contract basis if his full time people were overloaded. He seemed to like that idea also.

I then mentioned my current training in web design, marketing management and my photography work. Tom mentioned that the firm could use better photos of its project work for marketing collateral and that I might be a candidate as a shooter.

I felt great leaving the interview, because I had effectively sold myself as a possible contractor/consultant, which is my real long-term goal. And I mentioned in a prior post this firm is the spinoff iteration of a company that went bankrupt a couple of years back. So it stands to reason that although the firm is planning to ramp up its bidding efforts, it’s not going to want to hire a lot of full-time support staff, at least for now.

For Monday’s interview, I’ll attempt to use a similar consultant approach although this other position  is billed as a one-year contract job involving proposal development.

Stay tuned.

Peace out.