The First Day

This was fairly uneventful. I met the woman I am staying with, who is very, very nice and we talked for a while about a variety of things over tea. Once that finished up I took a shower to help me feel like it was really morning and headed for the nearby shopping center (AKA mall – though mall’s in Ireland are much better designed than US malls) to see if I couldn’t find an internet café.

As it turned out I was able to find a small shop in the mall that actually had a free, open wireless connection. I was expecting to have to pay for internet access every time, so this was a nice surprise (most of the other places I have found so far do require a paid log-in of some kind to use them). I checked some things on the web, shot off some emails to let everyone know I made it, and started doing research on some of the firms I would be interviewing with.

I had a meeting scheduled that afternoon with my recruiter (fortunately no interviews on the first day) and when it was time to leave for that, I gathered up my things and headed for the LUAS station. Fortunately there was also a LUAS stop nearby (both the mall and the LUAS are about 15-20 minute walk from where I am staying). The LUAS is very much like the MAX, in that it is an above ground trains system that is currently fairly limited in where it connects to, but eventually will cover a great deal of the metro area. I bought a ticket and got on the next train. From the last stop at St. Stephen’s Green, which is the south edge of city center, it was about a10 minute walk to my recruiters office.

A note on recruitment: They often use recruiters in Ireland, which are kind of like realtors – they help you do something you probably could have done yourself if you had the time and connections, but having them makes your life much easier. In this case, though, you don’t have to pay them. The company that finally hires you pays them based on a percentage of your salary. I assume the companies are willing to pay, because they didn’t have to put a lot of time and money into screening applications and the like. In any case, it seems to be working for me so far. More on this later…

The first meeting with my recruiter, John Duffy, went well enough. It is strange setting something like this up without actually meeting the person. Somehow it always seems a little disappointing – never what you expected. I had contacted about six different recruiting services and the one I am working with (Big Fish Recruitment) happened to jump on the opportunity with the most vigor. By the time I arrived in Ireland he had eight interviews lined up for me. (Over the course it would end up being ten in total and out of ten interviews you’d think someone would be interested…Time will tell.)

Even though he wasn’t exactly what I had pictured in my head, John seemed a good guy and set me up with the information I would need to get to my first interviews, which in Dublin is a task in itself (street names change at just about every intersection, so a map is a must, and often not really enough). He also gave me a bunch of print outs from the companies’ websites so I could study up and be prepared, along with some basic pointers on interviewing, which seemed fairly universal. Rather than trying to go through every interview at once, we decided it would be easiest if I just came in and saw him every few days to get more information. So, with the first two interviews in site, I headed home to get some much needed rest (I ended up staying awake for about 33 hours in total, which is great for getting settled into the new time zone, but a bit rough on your system).