The interviewing saga continues. I don't want to give too many details because I have this horrible fear that they will some how find me here. But I gotta tell you some of the applicant's have been very ill prepared. A select few of the cover letters and resumes were really scary. Poor sentence construction, incorrect grammar, sentence fragments and terrible formatting. The kicker is that the position is almost all writing. Why on earth would someone hire a grant writer that doesn't pay attention to detail? The other thing that has struck me is the handshakes. I have gotten the "dead fish" from both men and women. I'm not tiny so they can't possible be afraid of crushing me, right?
Of course the supervisor in me is dying to give them feedback. I want the people who aren't being called back to know why. And I want to give them tips on how to be more successful in their next interview. But I guess that just isn't done. Talking with all these people has really driven home the state of the job market. I can't imagine how scary and frustrating it must be to be out there looking right now. About a third of the applicants had either already been laid off or their organizations are about to lose funding. This is before the Governor has started walking around cutting the rest of the budgets. This is the one time I've actually been glad that the state never financially supported us.