Temporary Freelance?

Two days ago, I received a call from Adecco agency, asking if I was interested to take up a 2 weeks temp job conducting company-wide organizational survey.

My heart jumped at this news because I have always been interested in this area of work, just that most of such positions insist on a few years of relevant work experience & I only had one project attachment during my university days.

I went for the interview this morning at the Singapore branch officer of Spire Research & Consulting Pte Ltd, located at Shenton Way. It was a relatively small office, but I figured that it made sense that research companies don’t necessarily need to hire hundreds or thousands of staff.

But seriously, I liked the working environment there! Normally, I like to work in an environment that has a lot of space (not that I’m claustrophobic), but this office was different. It had a stylish layout & not crowded with lots of individual work cubicles, which I utterly dislike coz it makes the work atmosphere very secluded, resulting in high intensity of individualism & lack of openness among colleagues.

If I had the choice to choose (not that it’s really a very important factor though), I would really like to work in an office without work cubicles. Just work tables or stations. Well, at least for the main area where fellow colleagues work. Of course, managers & senior staffs can have their own room. But I would really prefer the open concept kind of work environment.

I suppose that this probably works in companies that deal with creative kind of work, e.g. research, advertising, marketing, publishing, communications, etc.

Honestly, I hope to be able to be given a chance to work in such an area of work, coz the work isn’t monotonous & there are enough variety & challenges to keep my toes curled up tight! Of course, the drawback is that time is a very critical factor, stress is inevitable & work may spill over to the weekends (occasionally).

But still, it’s worth a try… not that I haven’t applied for several of such jobs. It’s just that it’s pretty tough to get into a job in these areas, without at least a few years of relevant work experience. Who knows… perhaps God might open up an opportunity for me… coz if I was given a choice, I wouldn’t go for industries such as finance, banking, manufacturing, engineering, etc. People-oriented, creative & variety type of job scopes are strongly preferred, as there are more in-line with my aptitude & personality.

Anyway, the interview went well & it was one of the few times that I actually felt more confident about what I was saying. I guess having done a similar nature of work with Meritus Mandarin Singapore, does help to boost my confidence with that bit of job scope familiarity.

The manager - Morris, did seem very in the hurry coz it was a very busy day for him. He didn’t even ask me the usual questions that were asked during a typical interview. He went straight to ask about my related work experience with Meritus Mandarin Singapore & whether I could do this job. Full stop.

My observation of his body language told me that he wasn’t the prime decision maker as to whether I was the most suitable candidate for this freelance job & my guess was confirmed when he did eventually say that he still needed to consult his boss before the final decision was made.

Yet, I must say that he looked rather impressed & assured from my elaborations about how me & my team mates conducted this organizational climate survey & how I led my team as their project leader for 5 full semesters during my bachelor degree program.

I also showed him a sample of a research project done by my team & he looked at it. He even requested that I e-mail to him a sample of the questionnaire that my team developed for Meritus Mandarin Singapore, minus the confidential info.

Thus, unless I have totally interpreted wrongly, I think I had instilled in him quite a bit of the confidence & experience that I had in doing this task. Let’s wait for his reply in 2 weeks time…

Thank God for this experience… though going for interviews for months on end, does get boring & demoralizing at times… besides, I still need to look for a perm job, coz this is just temporary freelance for 2 weeks…