Well!

Yesterday was interesting. First off, the Gastonia job: I called the recruiter, and well, he hasn’t had a lot of luck. I interviewed the Monday before Labor Day; the HR rep left for maternity leave the Friday afterwards. Ever since then, the recruiter hasn’t had any luck contacting anyone at the plant or getting them to return his calls about this position. I gave him the names of the two people this position would report to, one of whom had told me he would be taking over the hiring process – both of these names were new to him. Sheesh. This doesn’t reflect poorly on the job, necessarily, but I’m not particularly impressed with this recruiter. So that’s currently up in the air.

I called to check on the Abbott position again. The guy there is still interviewing people (I think he’s been through ten or twelve candidates so far). This does not inspire confidence, and it tells me that the probabilities of that one are diminishing. As I was afraid would happen, the recruiter indicated that the client probably thought I was overqualified for the position. I technically am, but at the same time it would be a good return to chemical engineering fundamentals. On the bright side, the recruiter got an interview for another position for me. Yay! The interview is on Tuesday, September 21, at 3 PM.

And so it looks again like I’ll be driving up to Chicago. And since it would be stupid to turn around and come home when the MFF staff meeting is on the 26th, I’ll be sticking around for that. In the meantime, I’ll be looking for jobs and trying to nail down something. Current plans are that I might be driving up on Sunday, though a lot depends on where Ivan tracks – right now it’s forecast to advance to the southern Appalachians and just sit there through Monday, so that would make the first 6-or-so hours of driving extremely unpleasant. Hmm, if only I knew a couple of foxes who lived along the way so I could break the trip up. Whoever would that be, I wonder? (Hey, aerofox or loriana – gimme a shout and let me know if you already have plans for this weekend. I’m assuming that your bright.net addresses no longer apply. I can drive straight through if need be, but with the slowdown from the rain, well, it’s not my first choice.)

I need to fire off an e-mail to my contact at Corn Products and let him know I’ll be available for an interview next week or the one after, too. Off to be useful…