I’m not naive enough to think that very many of you have been following my adventures as I try to get myself a job as a lab tech in the United States, but I’m excited and I have to share. I can’t keep it in anymore!
I got an interview!
It’s next Tuesday, it’s at a hospital nearish to Baltimore, and I’m giddy and nervous and happy beyond belief. I’m confident - I’m qualified, I’m eager, and I’m adorable. My boyfriend is so optimistic that he’s started looking into apartments for me near the hospital.
The nerves keep kicking in, because this is really important. I want this job really badly. What will I wear to make a good impression? Even more worrying: the position is for the biochemistry lab (core lab) - Will they want me even if my experience is in blood bank? I’ve already asked the lab supervisor there what type of machines they use, and I was nervous because they’re not like the ones at my hospital. But as I confessed my worry to a friend who works at a different hospital in Montreal, he told me that he works with those machines every day! So I went there after a shift this week and he gave me a crash course, so at least I won’t be totally clueless when they give me a tour of the lab.
My God, if I get this job, then I get a work visa and can live there for at least a year! Probably more, if they like me and decide to renew my work visa. I’ve been wanting this for so long that it seems almost unreal. Next week, I will know whether I’ll be moving to Maryland before Christmas. Being able to see my boyfriend whenever I want and not having to buy a plane ticket to do it - wow. I’m going to be a Maryland Doper! Well, maybe. Probably? Maybe. Wheeeeeee!!
Interview tips? Giddiness-control tips? Well-wishes and lucky vibes? I’ll take anything!
As someone who does a fair bit of interviewing I’ll say a certain amount of gittiness and verve for the position is a plus. But over-the-top gittiness like dressing in red, white and blue for a government job or wearing a lab coat to a hospital job would be a tad overkill.
A good, strong, old-fashioned handshake, and good eye contact goes a long way. Avoid exaggerating what you can do, and for heavens sake know the job description and ask questions accordingly…
Interview tips - Don’t pretend to know more than you do. Explaining that you’ve gone out of your way to get some experience of the machines they use should give you brownie points, but trying to over-embelish the truth will just get you caught out. (Not saying you’d lie or anything btw, it’s just all too easy to want to fill in the silence if they do that ‘don’t ask the next question for a clear minute after you’ve stopped talking to see if they crack’ thing.)
Giddiness-control tips - Remember Tom Cruise on Oprah? Don’t do that…
Well-wishes and lucky vibes - GOOD LUCK!! And don’t worry about the machine difference thing, they’ve seen your CV, know your experience and you’ve got the interview, so it’s obviously not a big deal.
Good luck. I got an interview next Tuesday.
The only problem is I saw a job posting today that is a much better fit.
What if I get the offer from the mediocre fit? do I turn it down in hopes on getting an interview / offer from the better fit???
Bird in the hand and all that but…
Best wishes for you, Antigen (blood bank was always my favourite department). I don’t mean to rain on your parade, but I assume you’ve looked into how long it takes to get a work visa after you get a job? I knew an x-ray tech once who had a job waiting for her in the U.S., and it was taking long, long months for her work visa to come through.
No - you take the mediocre job, and call up and politely cancel if you get a better offer. It happens all the time. That’s one of the reasons it’s so important to be polite if someone calls you and tells you that you didn’t get the job - they might call you in a week and offer it to you, after their first choice changes their mind.
It’s gotten easier for skilled Canadian medical techs to get work in the States. I need to thank Eva Luna for her extremely helpful insights in another of my threads. With her advice, I did the research on different kinds of visas available to me, and it’s so remarkably easy it’s almost unbelievable. The catch is, most of the hospitals I’ve been applying to have no idea about the newer TN visa, and assume I want sponsorship for a green card. Once I got all the info, I was able to counter their “sorry, no green card” dismissal. That’s right, I talked my way into an interview! Never thought I had it in me, but at this point I’m ready to go to every hospital in the state and make my Antigen sales pitch.
I wouldn’t worry too much about not having run those particular ones. All the labs I’ve ever been in expected to have to train new employees. I’d never even seen some of the instrumentation before when I started here. Just show that you’re willing and quick to learn and all will be fine. (And never, never say “But that’s not the way we did it in my old job!”)
dwyr
MT (ASCP)
Oh, I know, I know, and I’ll try to train myself to speak of them with respect. I’ve been in the blood bank for a while now, though, which is all manual work, and I can’t help but see the core lab as a strange faraway world where everything is run by giant bleeping machines. I’ll adjust pretty quickly, I hope!
Well, I’ve been doing a lot of that in my new job! I’m a pharmaceutical chemist, and while I love my new job, there are actually a few things I disagree with, and feel they should change. I don’t want them to do things exactly like my old place did, but there are a few things that I’ve learned which could really help the lab get much more use out of the software they have for the HPLCs, for example. I also strongly disagree with the way they run sequences when it comes to system suitability injections… I feel that they are not proving that the systems are stable, they are camouflaging potential drift and are obtaining sample results that cannot be compared to each other, since the software will be using a different standard mean result for later samples. I have brought this up with a few coworkers, and will be suggesting it as an SOP change in a monthly meeting that will eventually happen!
If you feel you have experience or information that can really improve your work environment and make your company better at what it does, then I say go ahead and share it. Sometimes it takes new people to realise that something everyone else has been doing just doesn’t work. I only hope you end up working somewhere with supervisors/bosses who are willing to listen and learn something new!
My boyfriend is so optimistic that he’s started looking into apartments for me near the hospital.