Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Second Interview Recap

Today was my second interview for the finance/operations assistant position and I think it went well. I first met with the guy in charge of compliance and legal issues. We started off with a pleasant chat and it was going pretty well. He was actually fairly new to the company as well so he gave me a brief overview of his duties. Part of my duties, if I get the job, is to help him out as well. He gave me a few ideas about how I would help him out, but that part of the role is still really undefined.

Next, I met with two other people: the person in charge of operations and one of the head traders. Overall I thought it went good, not great, but good. I was able to show through my past experiences that I've done a good amount of the duties of this new position. I made sure to think of a past example that would relate to some of the duties they were talking about, and I think this was a good move.

Finally, I met with the CFO who is also acting as the lead HR person for this position. She asked me about any other potential jobs and I was upfront about the situation with the other two places. I then found out a little more about the interview process. This week they are holding their second interviews with candidates and they plan to have 5 or 6 interviews (including me). I'm fairly certain I was the first to be interviewed. On Monday they are going to decide from the group and narrow it down to 2 candidates. It seemed there was a slight possibility of just picking one on Monday, but it also seems she wants two candidates to come in for a third round of interviews (meeting with the head portfolio manager and the person in charge of research).
She also mentioned the pay, and it was more than I expected. This job pays 25% more than the junior trader role and that's not counting the yearly bonus. Factoring in the potential bonus, my best guess is that his job would pay between 37 and 50% more than the other one. That's a pretty big difference!

As of today I'm still waiting for the junior trader role to get back to me, but I hope they take a few more days. By Friday I should expect to hear back from another position. Then on Monday I should hear back from today's firm.
Just to note: if the junior trader position offers me a job, but the other two firms do not- I will then see if I should take the job or continue searching. But I really don't want to be in that situation.