Job search

Hi friends! I hope you're all having a great week :) I miss you guys so much already. It's crazy. I'm excited that I get to come home in three days! I still feel like I'm on vacation, not like I moved here. Well mostly because we STILL do not have our furniture, but I'll get to that later. Zeke and I have been busy exploring our new neighborhood, and I have lots of fun pics of our adventures. Well most are of food (surprise surprise) and the beer selections at the places we have visited, but it will still give you an idea of the new 'hood. I will work on that post tomorrow when I have some "free time".

Now I know you're thinking, wait... free time? Kate... you don't have a job so what the heck have you been doing. On the contrary-  we have hardly had time to breathe. This is the first time I have had a chance to sit down on the couch and type! I'm excited to announce that part of the reason I've been so busy is INTERVIEWS! Yay! As I have mentioned before, mama would love to chillax and enjoy DC while daddy brings home the bacon.... but that is FAR from reality. I think Michelle Obama even has a part-time job.

I have a few exciting things in the works. In one of my earlier posts, I mentioned I had an interview scheduled with the Corporate Executive Board (CEB). I had my phone screen last Monday, it went well,  and I moved to step #2 in the process, which was a 2-part "Assessment". I was very excited to get to the next step with them, it seems like a company I would have great career opportunities with. Although, it's about as "corporate" as you can get. I mean... look at the title. Doesn't sounds too risque. Anyhow, I sat own to complete this "Assessment", and boy was I in for a treat. The first part was a "business acumen" test where I assumed they would ask what 4x10 is and ask me about fractions. Well you know what they say about assuming. It was over an hour of complicated strategic analysis questions with mock business scenarios pertaining to quarterly regional performance, promotion ratios, gross profit margin analysis... my head hurt after 5 minutes. So after I fumbled my way through the test and was totally stressed out, I had to take this Personality Assessment that asked me 200 questions in 5 different ways. Some of my favorites were:
- Would you ever consider being a jet fighter pilot?
- Do you think people find you attractive?
- Have you ever lied to someone to get your way?
- Do you ever think your boss is incompetent?
- Do you have to have the last word in every conversation?

The whole time I'm thinking... shit. Well how do I answer this? But I decided to just be totally honest. I mean... if they don't like my answers... then I don't think they're ready for this Jelly. So I took this test last Tuesday. And I still hadn't heard back as of yesterday. I was starting to think... shit. I should have lied. HA. But to my surprise, they called and said I scored a 100 on the test (get your guns up Tech HDFS Majors), and my personality fits their criteria! SWEET! So if I get the job, I will work with a bunch of lying, bull-headed attractive people who think their bosses are incompetent and secretly want to be jet fighter pilots. But at least we will get along. I'm supposed to have a phone interview with the supervisor next week and an in-person when I return in late december. So there's one option!

The next proverbial iron I have in the fire is the one I am SUPER EXCITED ABOUT! I had my third interview today with Living Social. Yes... the company that competes with Groupon! I interviewed for a Senior Inside Sales Specialist at their Headquarters in Washington DC. It's located in the heart of "The District" (shutup Jessica, everyone here calls it that). I went to the office today and met with 4 of the managers. My interview lasted about 2 hours. And I have to say that the office is by far one of the coolest things I've ever seen! Everyone is young, they all wear jeans and smile at their desk, everyone said hi and was totally friendly, and they have ice cream any time you want it. I mean... what more can you ask for in a company?

Now, I'm not basing the job only around those awesome facts. While all of those things are cool, the job is way more than ice cream and smiles. It is a very forward-thinking organization with a contagious excitement everywhere. They are Groupon's top competitor, and from doing my research, also have a better product with no hidden fees for the companies they do business with. Their CEO graduated from Georgetown in 2004 and is 28, talk about impressive. They have grown from 25 to 125 cities this year alone, and they are extremely financially stable. If you are a company in a metropolitan area, partnering with LivingSocial to offer a discounted service is a NO BRAINER. So my job would be to call on companies in an assigned region of the US or Canada and basically convince them to run a deal through Living Social. I would really really really love to work there. My interview went well in my opinion, and unless I had something in my teeth or smelled really bad but didn't know it, I think I got the job! I still have to meet/phone interview with the VP of Sales because she wasn't available today, but everyone says we will get along great, so I'm excited.

OK, I need to wrap this up. I'm going to Target to buy some tights to wear to Zeke's company Christmas party tonight in Baltimore. We are headed back to the "scene of the crime"... the city where we first met! Pretty ironic how everything works out :)

I will update the blog tomorrow with our adventures from this past week and will let you know how the Christmas party goes. A room full of strangers and an open bar always make for good KMFJ stories.