The interview

After days sitting on my thumbs and getting my hopes crushed after seeing another delay notification that the interview will be postponed, the interview finally arrived.

The interview details changed from what I previously mentioned. Instead there was now a 5 person panel. These 5 members included the Vice President, senior manager of Software Development, senior engineer, and the two HR people. The introductions were painful. Of course, the software manager was notorious to grill people and had nothing to do with the position I was being transferred to. The HR was more clever than I thought. Everyone seemed to be impressed with my ghetto Japanese. I thought it was going to be a smooth ride. But just like any roller coaster ride, the beginning is always the calmest point of the ride.

As the interview progressed, the software manager grilled me on my technical knowledge. I answered some correctly and some not. There were a lot of situational questions that were asked. Most of them were "You know in Japan, customers are different from Americans, how would you deal with them if they didn't like your product and you could not provide them a solution in a timely manner?" I always reflected back to my situation with the client I deal with and hoped my answer would have sufficed. The same question in different forms kept coming one after the other. Again, I would answer the same way I did the first time it was asked. More questions were asked like I was a brand new candidate and not a transfer employee. I have to admit that those questions screwed me up the most, because I had no idea that they were going to ask me "What are you ambitions?" "Why do you want to work for this company in Japan?" I thought already being in the company, and letting my performance and recommendations speak for themselves would justify my motivation and intelligence level. Finally, the infamous HR guy threw a few low blows my way. All of them were questioning whether I would even fit in the Japanese company and were asked in a way of doubting how I would successfully handle working with Japanese co-workers and clients.

The interview concluded with me sweating like I've just ran a marathon. Having this interview on the phone was a disadvantage for me, since I could not gauge there responses and of course the communication aspect, I don't really know if they fully understood me or not while I was explaining my technical answers. Since a lot of those questions were situational, my answers were very wordy.

I honestly, don't know if I did well or not. I talked to the manager right after the interview and he also didn't know. He told me that the HR guy already planned to try to find another person to take the open position instead of me which is the reason why he deliberately delayed everything. Since the manager is a foreigner, I am not sure they took his view points seriously which is why the HR guy is having his way. He also finally admitted to me that he was taking a lot of smack because the "old way" Japanese employees didn't want to risk change and hire extra foreigners. The manager said that he would get a follow up by next week to see what the deal is. Yep, that means another week of waiting. Positively speaking, it seems I may be able to go to CA to my friend's wedding. But at the same time, I packed and was ready to leave to Japan a week ago.

I tried my best, and I honestly will be crushed if I don't get this position. Whether I get it or not though, I am starting to feel uneasy if these are the protocols I have to follow every time I want to enter a new company. I hope that the BS I am going through right now is just my company and not all companies in Japan. God I hope its true....