Portland’s last Wednesday in October was incredibly cold.  It was less than 40 degrees as I rolled out of SE and up to where my interview was.   As usual, I was early, and found myself with fifteen minutes to kill before I could reasonably amble over to the office where my interview was.

At that point, I went into the office, and offered icicle-handshakes to the people interviewing me.  It seemed like it went well, and the pair of staff members that interviewed me had a very appealing dynamic, which I think speaks to the friendliness of work environment. It was actually a fun interview, and I managed to work in the fact that I bike downtown several times a week, wrote a thesis at Scripps, have a cupcake blog and did fancy things at Scripps.  I also said I really wanted to learn Raiser’s Edge (a program used for fundraising), and I think sounded somewhat knowledgeable when I was talking about how Access and Ebase were not particularly powerful database programs.

At one point, they asked me what my work-style was, and I said that I like to break things down into manageable consecutive tasks (how I wrote my thesis) and ask a lot of nitpicky questions because I am…nitpicky.  They said: “That was the right answer.”  It was reassuring.  They were really nice people, and they gave off really good vibes, which made it much easier to make the interview a platform for showing that I was probably a good fit for the position.

I think one of the things that made this a more comfortable interview was the preparation I decided to do for it.  For my interview at the Museum, I crammed.  I memorized the exhibits, the collections, facts about the museum space (including square feet dedicated to a particular collection), the exhibits that have shown in the last few years, major donors, and facts about the person I would have worked for.

Just like cramming for exams at Scripps, it wasn’t a terribly productive preparation method.  Instead of responding to questions, I was waiting for opportunities to show how well I’d studied for the interview, and I felt much less comfortable with the entire situation.  For this interview, I reread the job posting, my cover letter, my pre-write matrix, and the mission statement of the organization.  It felt like a much better way of preparing, and I felt much more comfortable and engaged in the interview because I wasn’t trying to show off how well I’d memorized the bullet points in organizational history.

Also, the last question was about my favorite animal, which meant I had the exciting opportunity of revealing how much I know about Giant Anteaters.  Any day that starts with Giant Anteaters is a good day.