Yesterday, this particular company called me again and with good news. There's a job opening for the Reports Analyst position that I'd been applying for months before. Wow, I thought, finally, this is it. I can prove myself again out there. Ready to accept the challenge in it all. But wait, I don't want to keep my hopes up yet, I still have to pass this job assessment test.
So, I went to the office today to take the exam. I waited in the lobby for the HR guy. And of course, everyone's wearing masks, practicing social distancing and all. Life goes on for the rest of us. I am just one of the many who needs a job and at their mercy at the moment.
After a few minutes, the HR guy finally called me for the job assessment test. He responded "nice to meet you", finally, because we've just been talking on the phone the whole time about my job application. I extended my hand but I forgot Pandemic. I was not supposed to shake people's hands, what was I thinking? Anyway, he guided me to this workstation where I was going to take the assessment test. Basically, it was just a spreadsheet test, so it should be simple right? Everyone knows spreadsheets. But this assessment is not really just about formatting or inputting data. It's a test if you can work with various formulas.
I was given one hour to answer all the spreadsheet exercises. There were sets of data on each sheet and I had to string appropriate formulas to come up with the right output.
I was confident that I was going to perfect this excel exam. I had been doing this for the past few years in my previous corporate life. So, I did all the sumif, countif, sumproduct, vlookup, if and nested if, VBA, macros, pivot tables, conditional formatting, data validation alright, except, except, one simple thing, the hlookup.
Oh my Gawd, I couldn't believe I couldn't output the right numbers. I was worried about the time limit so I had to move on or else I would get stuck on this exercise. But I went back to it and eventually gave up. It should have been easy but I just forgot. It's probably because I rarely even use this formula. The HR guy was nice enough to give me more time but I just couldn't do it anymore.
I was told that they are going to call me again for the final interview should I pass the assessment test. So, here I am again, worried and frustrated that I didn't have a perfect score. Because I know someone out there would have gotten everything right. Someone out there is better than me. Because there can only be one, right? Sigh.
There's also the interview to be worried about. It means I am going to explain myself again and justify all those gaps on my resume. It is not easy to piece all those job experiences together and come up with an excuse as to why I went from one company to another. And my traveling years of course is a big red flag. I need to make it sound like I know what I want this time and that I am more committed and more responsible than ever. Older and less dumb.
Well, hopefully, I pass the test regardless of my mistakes. And hopefully, I pass the interview regardless of the gap years. I just think I need to have a job soon. Life's getting in the way.
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