Second Week

Week two here in Eugene, and the top priority has been the job hunt. I've been looking through all of the job databases and noting every "Now Hiring" sign. I've been sending out applications and resumes for any and every type of position.

The most promising lead so far has been with an employment placement agency. Their website was a bit tricky to figure out, and I called a few times to leave messages without getting much of anywhere. But on Thursday I found that there was an option to apply to the agency itself instead of applying to specific positions they had listed. Within an hour of completing the application, I received a call and scheduled an interview for the following morning.

Now I had to decide what to wear to the interview. I do own a suit, but I wasn't sure if that would send the right message. I ended up thinking that the suit might be overdoing it, so I arrived at the agency in the next best thing I have: black pants, white dress shirt, and a tie. Seeing the other applicant in the lobby, a guy about my age, wearing jeans and a t-shirt with sunglasses resting on top of his head, I was glad I didn't go with the suit.

I signed in, completed a short evaluation, and was soon upstairs in their offices. I was nervous, but I think I did a decent job. Presumably because of my job experience, I was being interviewed by the agency's industrial recruiter. But when I mentioned I might like to try something more in an office setting, she asked the administrative recruiter in the next office to talk over my options with me.

The administrative recruiter was frank with me; she told me my lack of office work experience would work against me. But, she said, there were some lab positions that I might have a chance at landing. She asked me a few more questions and seemed to like my answers. She brought me back downstairs to the lobby and had me fill out a three-page checklist indicating my experience in a wide range of medical/laboratory procedures, which I mostly had to just go through, checking the "no experience" box.

When I was done with that, I was sent home to take a few more evaluations. I'd been told that the data entry tests were key for this position, so I was extremely careful on those. When I was done, I called back to the agency, and the administrative recruiter told me that she'd already seen my data entry scores and had set up another interview for me with the head of the franchise of the agency on Monday morning. So, hopefully all goes well, and I'll be placed in a job soon.

I haven't done much this week besides the job search, so there's not much else to report. I tried another new restaurant, Cafe Yumm! I suppose it more or less lived up to it's name.

I'll end this post with a couple pictures of the apartment, as I promised last week.

 Living room

Master bathroom 

Second bedroom (Library)

I'll try to keep adding more pictures in posts throughout the coming weeks.