Sunny & in the 40's

Means only one thing: Perfect cycling weather.

Ah, if only bad weather coincided with important indoor events such as "Mock Interviews." That's ok. I missed a good bike day for 2 possible future jobs...

Interview #1: A. Epstein and Sons International, Inc.

The representative conducted the interview very informally. He had also apparently been to Versailles, France through UIUC’s program, so we talked about that a bit. I hadn’t thought about this earlier, but he strongly urged me to include an 8.5”x11” format resume for their human resources department to be able to photocopy. I’m guessing that because it’s a bigger firm, considerations like that should be taken. We didn’t really talk about any of my projects. Perhaps he felt like he needed more time to look at them to really comment.

Interview #2: NBBJ

Apparently, some people from Gargoyle had mentioned the Bike & Build trip to their representative the evening before, because we ended up talking about that in the beginning. Awesome. He then said he liked the bluntness of my cover letter, but that it was a double edged sword, because some people weren’t about SUSTAINABILITY (capital letters) the way I was, so perhaps I should be careful about it. On the other hand, it targeted a narrow margin of like-minded people, so it could also be a good thing as something that talks to the people who I want to talk to. Interesting comment.

He also said to make my portfolio bigger. Yea… I should jump on that. At the moment, it’s envelope-sized because I didn’t want to have to pay for international fees when sending my portfolios out from France last year. I guess there isn’t that pressure anymore. Furthermore, the more recent projects I hadn’t included (e.g. the Earl Prize Winner) definitely need more space to be fully explained/well represented.

And then he mentioned to make a layout for my last 2 projects because they were a lot stronger than the ones already there. He laughed out loud about the green pepper idea (thanks Professor Hammann ^^), and he seemed particularly intrigued about my Versailles project. Ah, if only I had a Rhino model of it and V-Ray renderings …

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Sooo much more work to do. Of course, I do believe that it’s not the end of the world if I don’t get a job at Career Fair. After all, the first 3 jobs I’ve had were entirely unrelated. It’s nice to know someone in Seattle though. I’m really tempted to walk into their office wearing sweaty spandex and my bike on my shoulder and tell them I biked across the country for an interview.

Hahaha, I actually had a book with a cover about Peter Pran from NBBJ, and showed it to the representative. Everyone at the happy hour laughs, thinking it’s a joke, but no, I was serious about selling it to them. If anything, I’ll at least be memorable.