Today's interview was something else, to be sure. it was with an IP firm, which deals with patents, trademarks, and the like. i applied for a patent attorney position there. well, to be technically correct, it wasn't an interview. it was a pre-interview test, and it's the first one i've ever taken. it was split into 3 consecutive/concurrent sections - an IQ test, a reading comprehension test, and an essay test. i get the latter 2, because being a patent attorney means having to read and comprehend documents with complicated wording and writing style. it also means having to write descriptions that accurately showcase the invention, yet avoiding anything that could be contested legally. i don't think that i was too fancy or flowery with my language, which i feel is usually better. why use a paragraph to say something when a sentence will suffice? of course, there have been times where i have devoted huge paragraphs and even posts to topics that got me riled up, so i guess it depends on the specific situations.
what i didn't get was the need for an IQ test. personally, i feel that IQ is not really relevant to daily life. perhaps they wanted to test how quickly i could spot patterns or think on my feet? regardless, i did the best i could. i noticed that i was generally better with language questions than with mathematical or spatial questions. some of the questions were so arbitrary, though! like there was one where they gave you several two-digit numbers and you had to find the missing central number. the way to do it is to add all the individual digits of the other numbers to get the final result. i honestly don't see how this will be relevant to any job, but well. another disadvantage of IQ tests is that they're only accurate when someone is taking them for the first time. otherwise, the answer schemes can be found online and referred to, allowing the person to get a perfect score on subsequent attempts. not to mention that of course, i'm sure that a perfect score on an IQ test would raise suspicion if it stands out too much compared to the person's previous academic results or other benchmarks.
the nice HR lady got in touch with me again 2 hours after the test. that was the fastest turnaround time i've experienced so far. apparently, i did well enough to get advanced on to the actual interview. it was quite surprising, because i felt that i performed sub-par for the IQ test. or maybe my english test results pulled my overall up? well, i'm not complaining either way. it's nice to receive this kind of unexpected pleasant news. i'm just hoping that this interview process goes well. at this point, i'm still not 100% sure that i'd go for this job, but having more options never hurt. what i am pretty sure of is that i won't be taking the turf club job, unless they give me a ridiculously good offer that's worth me quitting the learning lab. considering that that would entail offering me about 60% more than my asking figure, i doubt it'll happen. well...that's fine. maybe it's something that i can revisit under different circumstances. as it is, there are office-hour jobs that pay the same, or even more! just have to look in the right places.
at the same time, i should probably enforce a hard deadline on when to stop applying for jobs and/or waiting for results of the applications. it doesn't matter how much companies offer if i don't actually take any of them up. there's probably a parable/fable about indecisiveness being costly that would fit in great here, but i can't recall any such story at the moment. let's just pretend that i've explained it in great detail, and you appreciate how it illustrates that indecisiveness can lead to nothing being gained at all. seriously, taking my overseas trips into account, i think that the latest i want to start work is 22 april. earliest...maybe 01 april? even though starting work on april fool's day sounds like the set-up to a really good prank. i just hope that i have the discipline to stop applying when i feel something right has come along.
what i didn't get was the need for an IQ test. personally, i feel that IQ is not really relevant to daily life. perhaps they wanted to test how quickly i could spot patterns or think on my feet? regardless, i did the best i could. i noticed that i was generally better with language questions than with mathematical or spatial questions. some of the questions were so arbitrary, though! like there was one where they gave you several two-digit numbers and you had to find the missing central number. the way to do it is to add all the individual digits of the other numbers to get the final result. i honestly don't see how this will be relevant to any job, but well. another disadvantage of IQ tests is that they're only accurate when someone is taking them for the first time. otherwise, the answer schemes can be found online and referred to, allowing the person to get a perfect score on subsequent attempts. not to mention that of course, i'm sure that a perfect score on an IQ test would raise suspicion if it stands out too much compared to the person's previous academic results or other benchmarks.
the nice HR lady got in touch with me again 2 hours after the test. that was the fastest turnaround time i've experienced so far. apparently, i did well enough to get advanced on to the actual interview. it was quite surprising, because i felt that i performed sub-par for the IQ test. or maybe my english test results pulled my overall up? well, i'm not complaining either way. it's nice to receive this kind of unexpected pleasant news. i'm just hoping that this interview process goes well. at this point, i'm still not 100% sure that i'd go for this job, but having more options never hurt. what i am pretty sure of is that i won't be taking the turf club job, unless they give me a ridiculously good offer that's worth me quitting the learning lab. considering that that would entail offering me about 60% more than my asking figure, i doubt it'll happen. well...that's fine. maybe it's something that i can revisit under different circumstances. as it is, there are office-hour jobs that pay the same, or even more! just have to look in the right places.
at the same time, i should probably enforce a hard deadline on when to stop applying for jobs and/or waiting for results of the applications. it doesn't matter how much companies offer if i don't actually take any of them up. there's probably a parable/fable about indecisiveness being costly that would fit in great here, but i can't recall any such story at the moment. let's just pretend that i've explained it in great detail, and you appreciate how it illustrates that indecisiveness can lead to nothing being gained at all. seriously, taking my overseas trips into account, i think that the latest i want to start work is 22 april. earliest...maybe 01 april? even though starting work on april fool's day sounds like the set-up to a really good prank. i just hope that i have the discipline to stop applying when i feel something right has come along.
-random thought of the day: One week of gym down!-
No comments:
Post a Comment