eggwards | Sep. 29th, 2005

Yesterday I had a voicemail on my phone from the HR person from a company that's looking at me for a management position. The recruiter said that because of the Hurricane that the power was off in the testing center that I had an appointment to go to, and that I would need to reschedule. Unfortunately I couldn't get the online portal to actually recognize this and make the change. I tried calling the testing center, but got no answer. Worried about this, i needed a way to leave work and make it to the testing center today.

Luckily, my bear-event induced cold was just bad enough to give me a credible reason to exit early today (Thanks Matty).

So I get to the testing center and I check in. Luckily for me, the center is back on line. Now there's been a joke going around that Houston was so hard hit by Hurricane Rita that someone had to pick up the lawn furniture that had fallen over. Certainly some places had lost power, but most were up and running by Monday. I'm not sure why this place, in the heart of the Galleria, was having so much trouble.

Well, I had forgot the password, but luckily I could look it up on the internet, and we were off and running. i wasn't sure what kind of test this would be. I had already taken one of those online personality things for this group and I was hoping that this would be something on that line, or possibly a situational test. Unfortunately for me it was mathematical. The questions dealt with reading charts and graphs and pulling and processing information from them.

I've never been good at math per se, at least the numbers side. I'm not so bad with the actual problem solving methods, and that's always what I took out of math classes in school. It was all about the method, not the actual results. I guess it's why I can't spell or my grammar might be a little off, but I can still get my message across. It's all about the big picture, and not the details.

So here I am understanding the questions, in most cases, but unable to do the math in the time provided. The questions are also written as if you've been a business major, which I certainly was not. I guess there's something to be said for the oddity of having a liberal arts type degree, there's always things you can learn, but you don't always hold the specifics.

The test had 30 questions that were supposed to be done in 35 minutes. After a bit I realized I couldn't get through this. Many people know that it takes me a couple of minutes to know what to tip someone. I knew if I had more time, or an extra tool or two, I'd be able to work this out, but I didn't, and I only had a small calculator. I needed Microsoft Excel.

of course to add to the problem, the computer's resolution was set wrong, so I didn't get all of the information for some of the problems. I couldn't answer the question without all of the information. When I asked the proctor to look into it, I was still on the clock, and I lost time. There wasn't a way to go back. I feel a little cheated.

I'm not sure what the employer is looking for, but if it's an accountant, or a trend forecaster, that's not me. If they need someone who works with and influences people, then that is me, and I know this test did nothing to tell them that. I feel like a real failure, despite the problem with the computer.

Well, I'm still supposed to wait to hear what this employer may or may not have for me, but I'm not sure I'll be hearing to much after this. I've resisted hiring a recruiter or consultant or whatever, but that may be what it takes, or somehow I'm going to have to take some bigger step that i've been previously uncomfortable with, but something's going to have to change.

Now I'm going to have to go blow my nose again. Here's a meme for you to be amazed by: