Well I never really saw myself as a salesman, but yesterday I hopped on BART with my Pocket PC, laptop, and a few resume’s and targeted a couple of firms that I had submitted an application to. I’ve sent out hundred’s of cover letters and resume’s and have had little response. But I’m sure that my stuff is just getting burried in an avalanch of applications.

Recently I found out that Craigslist offers an RSS feed to their web design jobs…Isn’t that just FANTASTIC!!! If you are not familiar with RSS, I plan on writing something on it soon, but basically its a feed you can monitor and get alerts from as changes happen. So what this means for me is that I can monitor any job updates on their site, so I can be hopefully found at the top of the Heap…

So I decided that yesterday I would go up to the city and drop in on a few places since I can be much more memorable and charming in person. I first met up with my friend Tom to show him a small XML thing I’ve been working on for one of his projects, and we grabbed a quick bite. It was nice to warm up with chatting over lunch since I tend to get too shy meeting new people. So after we wrapped up I headed to my first destination…up the street.

*The Creative Group*
After finding my way through the various banks of elevators, and hoping that security wouldn’t just escort me out for looking lost, I made it up to the 10th floor of thier building, walked up to a very nice receptionist, and told her that I was there to meet with someone from The Creative Group. This company seemed to be just one part of a larger organization, so I explained further when she asked me who I was there to see. So I very innocently told her that I had applied for a position on-line with that company, and I was wondering if someone might come and meet me for 5 minutes to see my Pocket PC applications. She made a quick call, and asked me to sit down. There seemed to be about half a dozen people waiting around in various pre/post application/interview/hiring phases, so I wasn’t too out of place…luckilly.

After about 15 minutes waiting around and wondering if I should just run away, and trying not to let my palms sweat, Greg came down and met with me and kindly gave me 5 minutes of his time. I showed him my two Flash based Pocket PC applications (sushiFiend and miniFrench), gave him my resume, and a quick background on me. He asked me a couple of questions and seemed very interested in what I had made. He walked me to the elevator and I thanked him for his time, and in turn he thanked me for comming by. WOW!

*Publicis*
This was the second place I tried yesterday, it was a 10 block trek to their office, but I was feeling pretty good, so the walk went quickly. I walked in and basically did the same thing. The receptionist was very nice, but said that it was a policy not to allow drop-ins like this unfortunatly. I tried to show her my little Pocket PC apps but she wasn’t very interested. She did give me the generic company card and said to give a call if I didn’t hear anything in the next week or so…

I really hope they contact me…but again I’m just one of many people looking for work right now…

Oh well, 1 out of 2 isn’t bad. I kinda wish it was the reverse, I got a much better feeling from Publicis than from The Creative Group. Not necesarily the people, but just the feeling of the office overall while being there. Publicis was in a cool brick building, and it felt homey, The Creative Group even though they were much nicer to me was in a very sterile office building…like you were in a bankers office…

On the way home I found out I have an interview on monday @ 10am with a company called Ask Learning…hope it goes well…