Blast from the past

Friday was becoming a bit like Thursday on the job-hunting front. That is nothing much was happening. Except a lot was happening in my current job (can't remember exactly what though).

Then my mobile did something it seldom does. It rang.

I couldn't make out the caller's own name or name of agency, as she had a slight foreign accent. Plus I was struggling to put on my Bluetooth earpiece.

She continued to talk about arranging an interview for a job in Prague for a very large company. I told her that a year ago I had been to that city for an interview with the same company. She said she knew that and confirmed the name of her agency.

Ah. It was the same one. We both laughed when I said "but that was a year ago".

As readers will recall it took at least six months from applying to the agency before I got a face-to-face interview in Prague. It was then at least another six months before I concluded that nothing was ever going to happen. I wasn't too impressed with all this. It was quite expensive for me even though they did pay for the flight.

So when the agency called again and asked if I could fly to Prague (at the company's expense) on Tuesday for another interview I was hesitant. Not least because I am really busy at work and can't just drop things.

I asked for a bit more notice and she said she'd get back to me. I also advised her that I wanted to complete this interim assignment which ends on May 31st.

A little later she called back. She advised me that the company's recruiter was in London next Friday and that he'd be happy to meet me.

That's much better. Although I'm normally very keen to fly to great cities, especially business class at other people's expense, I don't need to see Prague again.

Also, when I flew over to see them a year ago it turned out that the interviewer had also flown in from London just to see me. Do have to question the cost efficiency there.

As this interviewer hasn't seen me before he asked that I meet him at a certain famous hotel. In the lobby. On a sofa. Just to make sure, the agency sent me a link to the hotel's web page which shows the sofa in question.

No risk of anything going wrong there.