So many people in the office are simply overwhelmed with the recruiting season.  In a few weeks, full day interviews begin, and will take place once a week, every week, for two months.  And on the student front, the December promotion folks at INSEAD are in full recruiting swing for the final two periods.

My project leader finished the first round interviews at INSEAD just a few hours ago in Fontainebleau.  I put a few good words for my December promotion friends and my PL was pretty happy talking with them.  I just want to say great job everyone and enjoy the weekend.  (I wonder what national week party is happening tonight?)  Hopefully you'll hear some good news soon.

For those of you stressing out, don't.  My advice is that interviews go both ways.  You absolutely must figure out if your potential employer is a good fit for you, both in the nature of the work and if you can see yourself liking the people.  In the consulting industry where teams spend enormous amounts of time working together, not getting along just makes life miserable.  So take your time, figure out to the best of your ability what you want, and just be yourself (albeit prepared).

Today marks the end of the 4th week of my new career.  Some things have met my expectations, others have not.  And for some of those that did turn up the way I expected, I misjudged how I thought I would have reacted to them. 

The bad.  My background makes me very demanding about IT.  My personality makes me very intolerant of lack of productivity tools.  So finally today, 4 weeks into my job, I finally get my Blackberry and security badge (for VPN access).  What does all the jargon mean?  It means outside of the office, I have no access to any of the things I need for work, such as email.  Yes, it could be a blessing in disguise, this process shouldn't have taken this long.  The good news is that both my coach and my project leader (who is in charge of first day process) have assured me that the process has improved and will continue to do so.  This is the one area that caught me off guard.  One of the things I failed to successfully negotiate for in my contract was to exert more control over my IT.  I relented to the stringent corporate standards here (no Skype, encryption for sensitive emails, etc) that could only be enforced by predefined hardware.  I thought I would be ok, but in all honestly, I have been resisting taking a liking to my laptop.  And the old model Blackberries we got don't inspire any energy in me to figure it out.  I told the IT guy (who I am convinced hates me) that I'm willing to splurge on my own to upgrade to the latest device, but he convinced me to hold off as he's talking to the higher-ups about an equipment upgrade.

The pitfalls.  The clients we interact with make such a big difference.  Obviously I'm still on my first project and I've talked about this particular client before.  According to my colleagues, there exist client teams out there that are built from extremely talented and motivated leaders who are willing to listen and get their hands dirty.  And then on the other spectrum, there are clients that are completely hands-off, unmotivated, untalented, and just don't care (which is rare).  All in all, the quality of the clients will determine the quality of the work, as well as your motivation to contribute.  This I did anticipate before starting here and has been in line with expectations.  Regarding our current situation, our interaction with the client has increased a lot and I expect this progression to continue.

The good.  The learning of this project for me so far has been the methodology employed to keep the defined initiatives on track, and how to measure progress and distance to the goal.  The other side is the human factor of working with numerous groups, each with its own agenda, and motivating/whipping them into delivering.  This isn't exactly what I envisioned learning - financial models, market entry strategy, global sourcing.  Then again, it's still my first project and I am learning something of value.

The push.  Received my second paycheck, which is on par with my past paycheck.  The only difference my skyhigh rent negating it.  Ah, the price to pay to live in style, :)  Ok, sometimes it's tilted out of balance against me when having to travel to the client site on Sunday nights instead of Monday mornings - one more night of rent lost into oblivion.

On the reminiscing side of things, I came across two little things on the web that reminded me what I love so much about Silicon Valley.  Both of them involve the leaders in academia and industry.  The first was a little blurb about these people's passion to constantly innovate and research.  The second was a video interview of Judy Estrin, who talks about her career path from Computer Science academia to industry leader.  The passion for achieving great things with technology really resonated with me.  These people care about excellence and delivering value through research and creativity.  Hopefully, my next few projects will involve more exciting industries with a push for quality innovation.

Is there a little sense of panic, as in what the hell did I get myself into?  Definitely yes.  Does the fact that I walked away from Cisco's skyrocketing stock options to zero stock options sting a bit?  Yup.  But I do still feel optimistic about my choice?  Living in New York is like a dream, and will take me years (at this rate) to get to know.  Going forward, I'm staying upbeat in my approach to work with the intent of being productive in both work and growing myself with a clear direction.  Otherwise years will have passed and I will have unknowingly accepted the prescribed path without considering my fit for it.  Because we expend so much time and energy at work that when we're free, the last thing we want to think about is work, falling into the trap of just following the defined career ladder is just too easy.