The Glade 4.0

Got a 5 hour interview with a Fortune 500 company tomorrow for the position of Tech Analyst.....I have no problems with my interview skills (that I know of) and have almost always landed a job after 1 interview.

The problem lies in that this month makes 1 year since I have done anything with computers and you know how fast-paced everything is in the IT field.

Any advice?

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

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Well, the new whiz-bang that we're implementing is virtualization for the desktop. I'm not sure if that helps.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Most businesses stay well back of the cutting edge, so I wouldn't worry about your skillset being behind the times, unless you're shooting for a job at Google or something. What does the position of Tech Analyst entail that it requires a 5 hour interview?

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Here's the job description:

"Install and maintain desktop computer hardware, windows based software.
Install and maintain workstation computer hardware, windows based software.
Document current in house developed systems and site hardware configuration.
Assist customers in hardware and software problem resolution.
Research and propose possible third party software solutions.
Evaluates, justifies, and implements tools and techniques designed to automate work activities.
Manage network installation projects."

And its not just a 5 hour interview from what I hear, it's the FIRST ROUND of 5 hour interviews! I have a friend who applied for one of the previous tech analyst positions and went through either 3 or 4 rounds of half-day interviews only to be told he did not get the job. (He thinks its because of his age...he's a little older.)

They sent me an Itinerary and for the first hour I meet with the HR Manager, then the Materials/Logistics Manager, then the IT Department Manager, then the Senior Systems Analyst, and then someone else (not sure what their title is) for the last hour.

And no, its not someone huge like Google or something, it's for a company that manufactures engines for big rigs. It's an engine manufacturing company. Not sure why the huge interview process, but from what I've heard in the community it's a great paying job and everyone I know has been trying to get their foot in the door with this company since they opened their plant here last year.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Sounds like the job should be cake if you can make it through the interviews. Just be cool, man! Confidence can go a long way.

Lenas, I hope so! I'm just afraid they'll show me a fan and ask me what it is and I'll say it's a power supply or something, haha!
At my last IT job we had a hardware dept so we were not allowed to even crack open a case. It's been 4 years since I last built a computer.
I also have had almost zero experience with Windows 7 since we only supported XP and Vista last year.
But yes, I agree, confidence goes a very long way.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

If it's that large of a company, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they haven't switched to Win7 yet.

When you show up, ask them if you can bill them for the fifteen to twenty hours of hoops they want to make you jump through before they let you work there.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

If it comes up just tell them you haven't really had the chance to work with win 7 yet and tell them about how you've adapted to technology updates in the past. Provide examples.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Good call. I transitioned from Win95 to Win98 just fine and then to Windows Millenium (ugh!!!) and WinXP and Vista...shouldn't be a prob. Thanks Ror.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

At the end of the interview, if you're interested in the job, for heavens sake ASK for it. Tell them you're very interested, you would like the job and ask when you can expect a call from them when they've made their selection.

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In time, this too shall pass.

The interview went really well. Turns out, they've done group interviews before but mine wasn't one of them...it was just me in a 5 hour interview which has got to be a good sign. They are an extremely busy and growing plant; surely they wouldn't spend 5 hours interviewing one person if they didn't have it narrowed down to just a couple of people?

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Good luck, sounds like they were impressed with you to begin with. Hope things went well enough to land you the position =)

Do you get a personal break during a five hour interview or do they just make you sit under the hot lamp;)

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

For some strange reason one of Rorschak's best lines popped into my head, "I'm not trapped in here with you, you're trapped in here with me!"

Short, redhead with freckles and righteous anger, protective of kids - hates child abuse. Yep.

It does kind of fit.

Hopefully they were good people in that interview.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

We're still on XP. And we're a BIG company.

Same here, for the most part.

Stillon XP, and I work for the State of California. We're slow to upgrade at the best of times. Spending millions to upgrade everyone to 7 isn't going to happen for a few years yet.

Hopefully we'll just skip Vista.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

There's really no point in upgrading from XP until you're running on 64bit systems. So it'll happen eventually. There's no chance that they'll use Vista.

We're mostly on XP around here, but I'm in the process of rolling out Windows 7 as we speak (64-bit everywhere). From everyone I've talked to, skipping over Vista is a pretty common business pattern.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

I think Microsoft would be doing better if they skipped over Vista as well, and instead focused resources on something else.

I'd just like to say that apparently interviews have become much more intense over the last decade. 5 one hour interviews? I got my first job with my company with a 15 minute phone interview, a one hour in person interview and a one hour meeting after they had already decided to hire me--just to make sure I fit in with my workgroup (I think). All my interviews for internal transfers have been one-offs of less than an hour. If this is the norm, I soooo do not want to be out looking for work (aside from just not wanting to be un, or underemployed).

Lonedar...its bad. You just about cannot hand a resume to a person anymore. You can try but they will turn it down and refuse the hard copy and tell you to go apply on their website. Each website for each company requires you to upload your resume in addition to completing their online application...basically rewriting your resume plus a bunch of other stuff. Expect to spend at the very minimum, 30 minutes applying for each job.
For this particular job, I interviewed for 5 hours, and didn't even get anyone's email address (they do NOT give out ANY contact information before hiring someone) so I had to email my thank yous to the receptionist who originally called me in as she was the only number and email I had. (Yes, I asked for email addresses of those who hadhired *edit: Interviewed should be the word I haven't been hired yet!* me and she said no.)
Times have definitely changed.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Honestly, I've had to go through this (not even interviewing, just rebadging) multiple times, and it's just getting worse. Every company has their own database of data for applicants, they're all different, and your Resume hardly comes into it (a lot of times I'm copying things straight off my resume into their horrible system.) I guess when there are people competing for jobs in this kind of market you can put them through 20 hours of interviews and people are just going to put up with it.

I actually interviewed for a job a couple years ago where I went in for a 2 hour interview, impressed everyone there, was then told I had to meet the "higher ups", had another 2 hour phone interview, they liked me as well, then I was told I had to interview with someone else. This was a local position managing a local office here, but I was interviewing with everyone nationwide. This went on for a month, was delayed by someone somewhere being on vacation for a week, etc etc. I impressed everyone I spoke with, they all wanted to hire me, but I kept being forced to talk to someone else.

By the end, I spoke with the first manager that I had interviewed with, told him that this was the worst interview process I had ever been through, and that if he couldn't make the decision then I was not going to work with them, and if their interview process was this bad then I could not even imagine how their internal processes were. The conversation ended with me telling him "I will not be taking this job, please do not call me again."