Job Search For A Soul

yay. i made it to the 2nd round of interviews at standard chartered! whoo. going for it at 3pm later. hope for the best!

been actively searching for jobs since i came back. took a really long time to get my resume and cover letter(i HATE writing cover letters) up and running but its finally done. its alot easier now like once the skeleton is complete the rest of hte work just revolves around tweaking little details and making sure you don't send the wrong shit to the wrong company!(did that TWICE! KNN)

so anyway i managed to start sending my resumes and letters on tuesday. then what do you know on wednesday i get called up for not one not two but three interviews! wah. thought i was damn popular. but no lah haha. out of the 3, 2 are for selling insurance wan(knn so the position name is really very tricky). the last one was julian's standard chartered bank. still i went for all lah. go listen and learn also good right?

the first one was for prudential. i applied for a business development executive post. those bastards sell insurance whether you are an insurance agent junior management associate or the toilet maintenance executive lah so now you know in prudential, everyone has got a policy to sell. but not that i'm bad mouthing the profession. after the talk i realised that it really is quite a lucrative insurance market and the only problem with the profession is the public stigma against it. i mean seriously there's nothing wrong with selling insurance and more often than not the policies seriously do serve to help you (A) financially protect yourself against mishap or (B) save a fuckload of money. so really, nothing wrong with that right? but the interviewer who interviewed me, this Josephine woman, made a very realistic and valid(i was really impressed by her honesty in this business) point - alot of the social stigma has been created by insurance agents themselves. from their over-pesistence to their capitalist attitudes, this is what's become of the insurance industry. so its quite sad. of course not all insurance agents are like that, alot genuinely want the best for their customers too as either way both customer and seller wins mah. then of course she proceeds to say that "under her wing"(knn i thought she was gonna say under her skirt), she will train me to be ethical and successful...yada yada and the sales pitch overwhelms her. still it was interesting and she was relatively nice lah. till she asked me to address her as "da jie"(big sister? - fuck you!).

the second one was more interesting lah. standard chartered, as a sales consultant, julian's working there, and the environment looks pretty good(with tons of chio bus!). i dunno how i spent an hour and a half there but it felt bloody xiong. two managers asked all the standard questions, then told me the demands of the job, blah blah, standard(roll eyes) stuff lah. but afterthat a more senior manager came over and asked me to do a role play with her. i wasn't too obliging since she didn't look very young. then i realised the role play was an on-job role play. chay. wah so xiong still must pretend pretend siah. anyway she gave me a whole list of faq about one of their products and then she was supposed to call me and i was supposed to "assist her". the whole process wouldn't have been so tough had it not been for her stupid "to make this role play more challenging" task of typing a separate document altogether. so anyway i went through with it. i realise i sucked at multi-tasking cuz i only managed to type one paragrapgh and a half of that shit she gave me, though i felt i had to spend most of my time finding the answers to her stupid questions...so i came out of the interview feeling like crap. at least julian was there to show me around so that made me feel slightly better. but i made it to the second round of interviews! whooo!

the last one was a financial planning position. this company is apparently a wing of prudential. i didn't like it that much. the guy interviewing me, kevan, talked ten times more than i did. in the end the gist was pretty similar to that of all that josephine talked about. they, who call themselves the pathfinders, do apparently have better administrative and manpower support than jo's, but still if i ever did get into insurance it'd be with jo bah. geez i swear if my parents weren't so against the idea of me becoming an insurance agent i'd definitely give the profession alot more thought.

yup. so that was my three interviews in one day. haven't gotten any calls eversince. haha. except for today's second round in standard chartered. but then again everyone says the calls will come in around a week or two after the resumes are sent. so at the the worst this first round gave me pretty good practice.

anyway something really funny happened when i went for dinner with chun that evening. i was in a very mean mood(though at that time i really didn't realise it) possibly cuz of the tiring day. we had finished our meal at this ramen restaurant called ajisen in taka and while i paid the bill i also applied for their cheapo membership lah(10% off subsequent meals!). then as the poor cashier was writing my name on the card she had the indignant cheek to ask her friend beside her whether my sirname was spelled L-U-M or L-V-M?!??! i mean wtf??!?! then chun said its L-U-M but i suddenly(this was instinctive, really!) said damn loud to chun, "wah lao, L-V-M how to pronounce?!?". eeks. obviously the cashier heard it lah, and all she could afford was a wry smile. then i quickly smiled, took my card and left. haha. wah what a fucker i was. but seriously. that woman has the WORST handwriting EVER! ask to see my cheapo card when you see me.

think thats about all.