Job Interview Tomorrow
I’m very nervous. Tomorrow I have an interview for a new job - this will be the first interview I’ve been on in about a year. It’s very nerve-wracking. I’m trying to prepare, and over-prepare. What should I wear? The stress is mounting!
So what better way to prepare than to just write out stuff here in my personal blog? :P This will be long and boring, so if you don’t care, don’t bother reading this. This is mostly for myself, it’s easier for me to remember things if I write them out.
Here’s the job and my status regarding the requirements:
Art Lab Inc, The Art School at Snug Harbor is looking for a full-time office assistant. (This is the park I walk to almost every day. It’s literally 3 blocks away from my house. It would basically be the best commute EVER!)
Job responsibilities include basic office work; general art school related duties, as well as marketing and graphic design. (In my professional experience, I’ve done plenty of basic office work. I’m not sure what ‘general art school related duties’ means, but I attended art school for 4 years so that must help in some way. As far as marketing and graphic design, I have been doing that for a few years now.)
Ideal candidate will have:
* High School Diploma and some college or art related experience. (Check! I have a COLLEGE diploma from an ART SCHOOL so that should help!)
* Computer experience - Including MS Office, Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator as well as social networking skills and basic html coding. (I must admit my Illustrator skills are weak. But that’s because I never got to sit down and learn it. I pick up on new software really fast so I don’t think it would be an issue. I am excellent with Photoshop, clearly I am well-versed in social networking, and I spent most of 2009 studying HTML hand-coding.)
*Interest or experience in art/art education a must. (Again, I’m an art-school graduate so I think that covers this requirement! I love the fine arts, even tho I suck at drawing.)
* Ability to multi-task, attention to detail, ability to work independently to accomplish tasks, ability to learn new things quickly, and a professional demeanor. (Professional demeanor - that’s a signal to me to be dressed up and looking prim and proper at the interview! I can definitely multi-task, I enjoy working on my own AND working with a team, and as I said before, I can adapt and learn new things pretty quick.)
*Art teaching, book keeping or grant writing experience a plus. (Bookkeeping? Grant writing? Umm… I can try! I know Excel! I could teach some Color Theory or something, as far as Art Teaching is concerned.)
* Drivers license & car a plus. (I am useless, I don’t have a license OR a car. But my boyfriend does and he’s not doing crap during the day!)
Full-Time position will include weekends, scheduling flexibility is required. (My schedule is very flexible! Just as soon as I quit the crappy job I have now!)
OK so I’ve got the job ad all worked out in my head.
My strengths: Photoshop, Art School experience, HTML, Social Networking, Multi-tasking, Detail Oriented
My weaknesses: No car, limited Illustrator experience, Never written a Grant
I emailed my Career Services advisor and asked for any advice regarding interviews. He says: “I’d recommend looking over the job description and thinking of specific instances where you’ve had to display the characteristics that they are looking for.”
All right - let’s see for the multi-tasking requirement… At one of my former jobs, BitMAX LLC, I had to wear many hats. I was the in-house editor, so I often was working on a re-edit or chyron creation for a music video. In addition to that, usually I had to work on encoding video and audio files for web-streaming, or doing Quality Control checks on videos, burning DVDs, all while keeping the client updated via phone and email messages. I found that the best way to manage all these tasks at once was to segment them - since I knew roughly how long each task would take, I would devote blocks of time to different jobs and make sure I had enough time in the day to get everything done. Some things you can run simultaneously, such as encoding a file while doing QC for a video, so that was a key to keeping on track as well.
Interest/experience in Art/Art Education… When I was picking colleges, I could have gone to a number of schools. I had been accepted at a SUNY college in upstate New York, which would have been nice and cheap but at that school I wouldn’t have had exposure to the arts until my junior or senior year. To me, going to school in the city and focusing on art from Day 1 was a big priority. In my art school, while I was majoring in video, I was living in the dorms with students from all disciplines, including Fine Arts/Painting/3D Model Design/Claymation/all walks of life. As I became friends with people from different backgrounds and majors, I was exposed to different forms of art and I gained a great appreciation for the vast amount of ways to express yourself artistically. I would definitely be interested in teaching art at some point in the future, as I am interested in many different areas, such as Design, Photography, and even Ceramics.
Questions to ask during interview:
What would my duties be on a typical day in this position?
What are some of the challenges I can expect to face in this role?
How much interaction would I have with the art students?
I noticed the current office manager, Katie, designed the Art Labs Spring 2010 catalog cover. Is this the sort of graphic design job that I would be handling?
Well that’s about all the over-speculation and preparing I can muster. Am I missing anything? Anyone have any advice?
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