A Well Hit Ball...

...but we'll have to wait a couple weeks to see if it clears the fence or not.

Today was my phone interview with Gargantuan Hospital. I was at my community health clinical site so about 5 minutes before time I secured a quiet room, plugged in my phone charger, and sat down and waited. I was scheduled for 1530. And 1530 came and went. 1545, then 1600. Given the hiring freeze information from yesterday, I really began to sweat, and at 1610, mercifully my phone lit up and vibrated like mad. I answered breathlessly and was treated to an earful of sincere apologies for the interviewer's tardiness.

Once we got the preliminaries out of the way, she complimented my GPA and work experience and we started the interview in earnest. I got the usual interview questions: What are your 3 year goals, what are your 5 year goals, "Tell me about a time that you had to advocate for a patient," "Tell me about a time you had to deal with an angry patient," etc, etc. I was relaxed and had a ready answer for each question, and I really felt good about the rapport I had with the interviewer.

She then told me she had gotten 380 applications for the critical care internship in just 6 days. So I asked her about the hiring freeze. She laughed and said, "No, absolutely not true." Apparently they were doing an HR audit, where they froze all operations for 3 days so they could take inventory of what positions were still open, what had been filled, what they could fill with internal candidates. This particular hospital system employs over 20,000 people just in our metro area, so they need to take stock of themselves every now and then. In fact she has 930 open positions to fill!!

After the final questions regarding whether I could pass a background check and drug screen, she concluded by telling me that she was going to highly recommend me and send my file to 5 separate ICU units for peer interviews. She told me that I was exactly the kind candidate they were looking for. She also told me that getting through the interview with her would be the most difficult part of the process, and that I came through with flying colors.

The only down sides are the pay (starting at $22.75/hr,) and having to wait 1-2 weeks for the unit peer interviews.

Frankly, I can deal with both if it lands me an ICU job at Gargantuan Hospital.

Thank you for your good thoughts and prayers, it really went well.