trust the gut

You know the feeling when you fit bang on perfect for a postion on paper, when the first interview goes really really well and you get all psyched up looking forward to the next one? And it goes all terribly wrong, because you really really don't speak the same language? In fact it may be doubtful you even live on the same planet. 

Yup. That just happened to me.

Remember the interview for (what seemed like a great job) I had booked for the week before last? It went very well, the recruitment company was really nice and the meeting was lovely. Last week it was time for the meeting at the actual startup company, which I obviously looked forward to lots.

But it turned out to be a very awkward meeting. In fact one of the weirdest ones I've ever been to. To put all those impressions into short: we really really didn't speak the same language. At all. And with blasé stonefaces they looked at me like I as was a UFO. My immediate gut feeling said NO, to be honest I actually felt like standing up and say 'hey guys, this doesn't feel right, thanks but I'm gonna leave now'. And that's certainly a rare feeling for me. Had a great feedback talk with the recrutitment company today and I was glad to hear that the feeling was mutual. Trust the gut. So I'm grateful I never had to deal with an offer given my gut feeling.

The recrutiment company were also surprised at how very differently they resp the company's CEO had perceived me - happy and inspirational vs shy and bad at selling myself. The shy thing I have no idea about, the bad at selling myself, well that could definitely have been the above mentioned feeling of simply cutting the meeting short and say 'bye'. And to be quite frank, mr CEO and the other guy at the meeting (whose role I still haven't really figured out), you were certainly not good at selling your company with passion and enthusiasm either. Good luck to the one that fits and gets the job, I'm really curious whom that would be.

All and all, a great position (marketing and community manager) I'd absolutely jump with joy at in a startup company showing the right chemistry, where people actually seem happy and truly engaged in what they're doing and where we click - but this was not it for me, or them, alas.

I'm also baffled that many companies don't realise that an interview situation isn't only a case of them scrutinizing a presumptive new employee, but most certainly they will have to impress that person too. It's a two-way interview not a one-way. And if you as a company fail at that from the start, its very likely you'll not get to see the best from the interviewee.

Now I'm very glad that I have a new contact at a great recruitment company, which seem to care a lot about both the candidate and the presumptive new employer. I'm also very grateful to the person who recommended me for the job. It's been a very interesting 2 weeks journey, of course I had hoped for much more given how awesome the month of August begun and how high hopes I had, but still a neat experience. For the gut and me.

So now I'm recharging for the first booked interview on Thursday instead. Where we'll hopefully click in a much better way. It certainly isn't as cool a job, where I would be able to put my own stamp on the role as much, in what could have been an exciting startup environment, but it does have other fine advantages. I will trust my gut.