Positive Job-Related News

I think "positive job-related news" and my current company are mutually exclusive. Guess where this is going.

A friend of mine works for a biotech company in San Francisco. She sent me a catch-up email a couple weeks ago, and in my reply I casually mentioned that work sucks. She immediately wrote back to mention that her company's hiring freeze is over and they are bringing people in like crazy. So I went through their online listings, picked out some things that looked good and passed that info along to her along with my resume and a cover letter.

She submitted all that last Friday. I got a call from an HR guy yesterday, and I had a phone interview with the hiring manager for a process engineering position today. Before we hung up, he asked me if I was interested in flying out to San Francisco.

!!!
!!!
!!!

I hung up and was spazzing so badly I couldn't figure out what to do. Scream? (Did that.) Jump around? (Did that.) Fall down? (Did that.) Who to call? Who to email? Do I blog it first? I called my mom first and I said something about "fucking flipping out" to which she replied that I didn't need to "use such language." I almost hung up on her. But I told her the rest of the story and got off the phone so I could call my sister who was appropriately excited.

From the sound of it, my friend's putting in a good word for me has gone a long way. And by all accounts the manager really liked what I had to say. So I'll be taking a trip to the Bay Area in a couple weeks. (Funny, I already had one booked, but I can go twice in a month.)

I am so unbelievably beyond excited about this. I've exceeded my own expectations having even gotten this far. Okay, maybe my expectations for myself are a little low after two years of getting the job search beatdown. Not to sell myself short or anything, but this is a fine example of the power of networking and the fact that who you know, not what you know, is the key to getting yourself in the door.

That said, now I have to study up because there will definitely be technical questions as part of the interview process. Time to bust out the old textbooks and the bible.

I'm so glad I don't have to work today because I would have had a damn hard time going to that place with those people and sitting on this information.

I'm calm. I am. *falls down*