Tesar-Reynes

I was talking to a friend of mine who was interviewing for a senior vice president position in corporate communications.

He was steaming mad. The company had flown him into their town the night before the interview and put him up in a nice hotel. The next morning he took a cab to their location. When he tried to check in, security did not have him on their list so he had to wait in the lobby 20 minutes.

Eventually he was escorted by a junior HR person to the first appointment. He then had to wait 15 minutes for his person to finish a meeting. The interview went fine. He was then told to wait in a chair in the hall for someone to pick him up for the next interview. And so it went.

At lunch, …

I have a confession to make. As a graduating senior, I am paralyzed with fear at the thought of getting a job.

I hear bad stories about this whole category for entry-level positions: lower pay, 10-hour workdays, cutthroat coworkers, not to mention, GULP, the recession.

I’m wondering if our resident guru can provide some advice to all of us dealing with the same fears.

Tony, can you help us out here? We’re kind of freaking out.

Tony’s response:

The pressure and the anxiety of landing the first job are amazing. Everyone handles this differently. I was fortunate to be able to defer the process for a while. After I graduated from college, since I was NROTC, I went into the Navy. When my time was up I extended for 6 months to figure …