Project Career Change is progressing. I will be interviewing with one firm tomorrow evening and with another one on Thursday.

I’m looking forward to the interviews – I quite like interviewing. It’s pleasant to talk to someone when both of us are entirely focused on the conversation and there are no disruptions. And the people you meet via interviews are usually intelligent, interesting and likeable.

I’ve been with my current firm for four and a half years now, but I haven’t been entirely without interview practice all this time. I’ve volunteered to interview a number of potential new hires for the firm, and an even larger number of summer intern candidates. Sitting on the other side of the table put things in a different perspective and helped me understand how things work, and what interviewers are really looking for with all their questions.

Besides, I’ve moved around within the firm. Internal movers are examined almost as thoroughly as external hires, so when I moved from one department to another (back in April 2004) I went through about 10 interviews, I believe. Not that that helped, really… After several months I realised that I was not at all the right person for the job, and the job was not at all right for me, so I quit. Sometimes I’m too persuasive for my own good and manage to convince others of my own views even though I’m completely wrong.

I quit in September 2004 and had time to apply (and interview) for one other job before I was offered a temporary and experimental job in another role in my old company, in a neighbouring team. They knew me and I knew them, so there was no interviewing as such, only a brief chat. I took the offer and have been there for the last 16 months now.

I’m also looking forward to hearing more about the jobs. Job listings will never be more than dead pieces of paper (or dead bytes) with formal facts – it’s difficult to get a feel for what the job is really about. How do the listed qualifications and requirements correlate to the real job? What do they actually develop? (These two listings weren’t too bad, but others just mention developing “tactical solutions for the trading desk” – what exactly is that?) How does the team work? What does their development process look like?

It’s becoming difficult to focus my attention on my current job.