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Applying for postdocs seems to combine all the worst features of applying for real jobs and applying for PhD places. I've successfully done both of those things, but I'm not at all sure of my ability to deal with this new, combined challenge. I can only assume that this is deliberate: faced with a population of largely shapeless applicants, appointments committees construct as many pointless hoops as possible in the hope that almost everyone will give up in disgust, and then the one person who turns up can be given the position.
Anyway, I had an interview for a job in the Real World1 yesterday, at a rather cool-sounding mathematical consultancy: you bring them your business problems, they apply Serious Mathematics to them, possibly write some software, and charge you for the privilege. Sounds awesome, frankly. The interview was a bit odd, in that most of the hour was spent talking at me about the company and what they do and what the various principals have done in the past, and very little time was spent asking me questions. Bad sign? And the questions they did ask, I muffed rather, eg "What are you bad at?" "Er... er... er... decisiveness?" and "Where do you see yourself in ten years' time?" "Doing something fascinating, with ten years' more accumulated knowledge". Possibly I should have spent the night before question-spotting and preparing slick answers, rather than coding some trivial Java apps and watching Star Trek (I'd been told the founder was a fan). But actually, the hardest part of the application process was locating the iron for my shirt before the interview - everything was done in a very low-ceremony way over email, and the interview took place at a mutually convenient location over coffee.
But anyway, I got invited back for a second interview! So, go me. They're looking to appoint one new employee in the next few months, and they've got six candidates, so fingers crossed...
1 Upsides of the Real World: better money (hopefully, forgot to ask about that), faster turnover of problems, less form-filling and bureaucracy, deadlines, the chance to make a visible difference to the world, wouldn't need to move to another continent. Downsides: having to get up early in the morning, unlikelihood of being able to wear T-shirts and combat trousers all the time, inability to set own hours, decreased chance to make long-term difference to state of human knowledge, less opportunity to travel. Right now, I honestly don't know where the problems are likely to be more interesting, which is probably the major consideration :-(
Anyway, I had an interview for a job in the Real World1 yesterday, at a rather cool-sounding mathematical consultancy: you bring them your business problems, they apply Serious Mathematics to them, possibly write some software, and charge you for the privilege. Sounds awesome, frankly. The interview was a bit odd, in that most of the hour was spent talking at me about the company and what they do and what the various principals have done in the past, and very little time was spent asking me questions. Bad sign? And the questions they did ask, I muffed rather, eg "What are you bad at?" "Er... er... er... decisiveness?" and "Where do you see yourself in ten years' time?" "Doing something fascinating, with ten years' more accumulated knowledge". Possibly I should have spent the night before question-spotting and preparing slick answers, rather than coding some trivial Java apps and watching Star Trek (I'd been told the founder was a fan). But actually, the hardest part of the application process was locating the iron for my shirt before the interview - everything was done in a very low-ceremony way over email, and the interview took place at a mutually convenient location over coffee.
But anyway, I got invited back for a second interview! So, go me. They're looking to appoint one new employee in the next few months, and they've got six candidates, so fingers crossed...
1 Upsides of the Real World: better money (hopefully, forgot to ask about that), faster turnover of problems, less form-filling and bureaucracy, deadlines, the chance to make a visible difference to the world, wouldn't need to move to another continent. Downsides: having to get up early in the morning, unlikelihood of being able to wear T-shirts and combat trousers all the time, inability to set own hours, decreased chance to make long-term difference to state of human knowledge, less opportunity to travel. Right now, I honestly don't know where the problems are likely to be more interesting, which is probably the major consideration :-(