Job updates galore!

For those of you who read my blog regularly, you might have thought I’d forgotten to provide an update on the California job I interviewed for back in December. Never fear, readers, I wouldn’t just leave you hanging and suffering sleepless nights wondering what was going on in my life…haha, right. :-)

The truth is, I didn’t have an update because the people I interviewed with seemed to drop off the face of the earth. Granted, I didn’t call them but I figured they would contact me whenever they were done interviewing other candidates, if only to tell me they’d hired someone else.

Which would have been fine, because as you might remember I decided back in early January that the job wasn’t the best fit for me. I will admit I was a little surprised to not hear anything from them for two months – to give an idea of timing, they flew me out for an interview in mid-December – but I shrugged it off as poor hiring etiquette on their part.

Well, on Tuesday, I received a voicemail from the recruiter saying that they were wrapping up interviews with the other candidates and she wanted to see if I was still interested. She also said something about salary and relocation assistance being the main concern they’d had about me and wanting to see if there was some way we could meet in the middle.

Huh, seriously? No word from them in over a month and a half and now they’re calling?! We have yet to speak on the phone since I waited 24 hours to call her back (yes I was busy, but I’ll admit there’s a part of me that enjoyed making them wait for once) so I may be totally off on this, but I guess we’ll see when we do finally connect.

On a separate note, I had my annual “pow-wow” with my boss yesterday to talk about how my job is going and where I see myself in the future. We did the typical chit-chat and she gave me a few areas where I might improve. Ironically, one is to socialize more with others in the department since she’s noticed I’m spending more time at my desk…little does she know that’s directly related to reading other blogs and writing my own!

Anyway, then she asked where I see myself going in the next few years. I always feel like this is a trick question, but I’ve come to realize over the years that my company truly wants its employees to be satisfied at their job and fulfilling their own career objectives. And if that means a move to another job or even another hotel property somewhere else in the world, they will try to make it happen.

So I felt completely comfortable telling her that I’m happy where I’m at now but if I position opened up within the company in California I would be interested in at least knowing about it so I could make the decision of whether or not to apply. She was honest and said that right now, there’s probably little movement in the company (most of our hotels are in a hiring freeze) but that if she heard of anything she would be sure to let me know.

Next she started asking about my workload and job satisfaction and if there was one thing she could take off my plate, what would it be? I thought her questioning was a little odd because while I’m certainly not sitting at my desk twiddling my thumbs, I’m also not overwhelmed with work (obviously since I’m sitting here right now writing this post…). I told her that and she responded with, “okay, there’s a reason I’m asking and bear with me until I get it all out.”

That definitely put me on edge but I was actually pleasantly surprised with the idea she proposed. She said they were looking for someone to sell our restaurant’s private dining room to pharmaceutical sales reps as a great place for schmoozing doctors over dinner. She’d looked at other people who could potentially do this role and kept coming back to me since I had both the personality and the organizational skills to do a good job.

Now, I realize there was probably some schmoozing of her own taking place as she tried to convince me why I should consider adding this to my job responsibilities, but it was still nice to hear. And I know it behooves the company to have someone internal handle this, but there are also some benefits to me.

On the one hand, the idea appeals to me because it will mean acquiring new skills and adding a fresh element to my job…not to mention I’d receive a commission for every reservation I personally book. On the other hand, I am the type of person who likes to feel confident I will do well at something before I take it on. I like challenges, but when it comes to PR I am usually pretty confident I will meet or even exceed expectations.

Not so with sales…this is completely new to me and I am pretty much starting at the basic level so there’s a little trepidation that I can do the job justice. Any salespeople (or pharmaceutical reps) out there have experience in this area or advice for me?

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