A quick mention that today is Kick
Butts Day, “a
national day of activism that empowers youth to stand out, speak up, and seize
control against Big Tobacco”!
Aside from that, I’m back to work, and
I’m continuing my search for website designers this week.
While in the midst of constant
back-and-forth, question-answer conversations with designers on Fiverr, I
decided to post a design request on Upwork to see if there were any candidates
there. Like Fiverr, Upwork allows clients to message freelancers individually
or make postings public to open up the job to anyone who applies. I thought the
latter would be very beneficial for us to make the best hire, so I put my web
design request on a public setting.
I didn’t realize the effect this would
have until I began receiving multiple notifications from Upwork and separate individual
emails from applicants asking me to consider them as possible contenders. And
the calls started to come soon after.
Though I’ve previously blogged about acting
the secretary, I’ve only accomplished the written part—pen-to-paper notes. I’ve
rarely answered the phone during my time at Marvin Medisoft, and when I did I
only took brief messages for Ms. Vaidya. Now I found myself in the interview
process, inquiring about web design proposals, searching through my notes for
answers to their own questions, flustering around for words.
I’m not very good at talking to people on
the phone, and this interview process confirmed it—at least in the beginning.
During the first call, I forgot to
introduce myself, and when we finished talking the designer had to ask who was
speaking. To me, “Mia Carlson” seems like an ordinary name to spell, but I
guess the translation got fuzzy on the other end, because when he emailed me
afterwards, he wrote, “Hi Miaca Erlsom”, which I really had to laugh at. After
that little mix-up, Ms. Vaidya advised me to answer all future calls with “Hi,
this is Mia, how may I help you?”, which definitely lessens the awkward
confusion if interviewees ask for my name.
The second call went a bit better (he
definitely knew my first name was not
Miaca), but when I was asked to spell my name, I think I blurted out, “‘M’ as
in ‘Mia’”, which I’m guessing isn’t very helpful.
Third time’s the charm? Not for me,
apparently. “I” sounds like “Y” (go figure!), so this particular designer wrote
back, “Hello Mya”.
In the fourth call, I finally figured out
how to spell my own name, ask the right questions, and jot down notes at the
same time, but I was still nervous on the phone.
Throughout this process, I learned the
ways around a phone interview, the value of customer service from a business perspective,
and the tricks to sounding out my name and its letters very clearly.
I am currently in contact with six
candidates, mostly by email (where I am much better with my words), and I hope
to decide on one by the end of the week.
Crossing my fingers that I’ll find the
best person to hire!
Mia Lu / Miaca Erlsom / Mya
