Post-interview

I am writing this post by 4:31pm Mon. Oct. 29th. I am setting in the O'Hare Airport looking at an AA 737.
Yesterday I blogged briefly about the pre-chicago period. Well, Chicago trip is almost over. Yesterday, I got in O'Hare airport around noon. My cousin husband came and picked me up to have lunch with them. Despite my delusional state of mind, and an unbelieving look at where I was, I was excited to visit them. Well, I am excited about visiting my cousin, but more important was her three kids. A 3 yrs girls twin, and a 7 months old boy.

The moment I got in their house, I started playing with the kids. More or less, it was trying to befriend them as they were very shy. I would carry the boy, Bilal, he would stare at me for a minute, and then start crying. I was never able to break into his circle of trust, as he went to sleep shortly after I arrived.

As for the twins, Aaya and Raya, pictures below. They are gorgeous! They, too, were very shy, and wont let me play with them, specially Aaya, but that all changed when we went out to play. First, I started running with them, and of course losing to them. Then they remembered their little plastic slide. That is when they totally ignored me, and went sliding.
I liedd down on the grass watching them play. It's amazingly cute how they play together in harmony. What was impressive
is their routine play. They would cut the grass, pour it on the slide and slide on it. After each slide, they clean out the old grass and put in new grass!! (I have captured this process by pics, I will post soon).
My theory is that when they put the grass they slide better, or it tickles them; for some reason they love it. When they slide on it, they smush the grass, and it no longer works as they want it! Kids are amazingly smart!

After that, my cousin husband drove me downtown to where my hotel is, Renaissance. I checked in, and went upstairs, 16th floor, and a bit. After I prayed Magrhib and Isha, I went down to walk and get some stuff from a convenient store. I found my interview location, and looked around till I found a 7-eleven. I bought some water and snacks for the night. Outside 7-Eleven, I found a cigar store. I thought,"a cigar goes really well with a suit." I bought a cigar in anticipation for the interview-aftermath.
Talking about aftermath, I realised that I usually treat a happy aftermath and a depressing aftermath the same, by eating!

It's worth noticing that Fuad, suggested that I take NyQuill to sleep early. Keep in mind that I did not have a runny nose.
Anyways, I bought some NyQuill from 7-eleven. I took the NyQuill and lied down on bed chatting on gmail waiting to fall asleep any minute. But, my nose start getting congested, and I was not getting any sleepy. I looked at wrapper of the thing I bought, I realised that I bought DAYQUILL instead!! urghhh, it took me a while to sleep, specially with the congested nose,
that is totally caused by dayquill!!

Woke up early, prayed fajr, and waited for my breakfast. (Room Service ROCKS) I put on my suite, packed, checked out and on my way to the interview. I left my luggage at the hotel.

When I got to Booz Allen offices, at the 23rd floor, two persons were setting at the door registering candidates, one of which, Rima, I have had contacted her before through email. So, we talked a little and she walks me to the waiting room, which had a fridge with sodas, water, and BEER! Now, why would they have beer there? I dont know. Anyways, I was setting there and Rima kept coming back and forth talking to me. It was fun. She works off of Beirut office. So she was telling me all about the nice things in their offices and such. In the waiting room, there were a lot of candidates, but all of them were MBA's. I was the only undergrad. It made me feel good, to know that I was the only undergrad being interviewed. The other MBA started given me advices and recommendations of what to do.

My interview started. I pretty much had 3 interviews. One hour with each interviewer. The first interviewer was a principle
in the Chicago office. I assume principle is like a level below a VP, or something like that. Anyways, he asked me a quick question about a project I did. Then, he jumped into the case question. I started well, and I was asking good questions.
Almost every question I asked was answered with lots and lots of information. I was going on the right direction, until at the end he asked me to answer a question I, myself, asked him using a piece of information he had given me earlier. I missed that, but he calmed me saying that almost everyone misses it. A funny thing is that I came in the first interview a little too relaxed and over confident.
I sat down in my chair, put my right leg over my left, and relaxed. When I asked about feedback, at the end, the interviewer said that my body language was a bit informal, and that I should at the edge of the seat leaning forwarad in attention to the interviewer. He followed up saying that these are standards for MBA students, but will make me go from good to very good! In the small break after the interview, an MBA student, was nice enough to tell me about this setting. Though, he adviced to set however I can think better! Nevertheless, I mastered that MBA standard setting!

The second interview was with a VP for the Middle east offices. Let's only say that he was arab. So, he was different from the first one, in that he went through all the regural uncle questions; where are you from? which Asfour are you? What does your dad do?
blah blah. Anyways, he again, went directly into the case study. I don't remember anymore if he asked me any questions about my resume.
He gave me a natural gas in the gulf case. I think I did pretty well.
It was different from the first case, as he asked me questions on the go, and was asking specific questions.
I think I did pretty well. allhamdulillah.
Again, I go wait for 15 mins while the last interviewer comes and get me.

If I am not getting an offer from Booz Allen, it would be from the third interviewer. The third interviewer did not seem to like me that much.
The case went OKish. He had to spoon feed me an answer; however,I did get all the answeres he wanted. At the end, he asked me why I want to start
my career doing consulting. He said, " you seem a very solid technical guy, why consulting? Work in engineering for a while, then do consulting. Get you Masters, then do consulting."
He said laughing,"I am challenging you here." Unfortunately, I was a little too comfortable with him at the end of the interview, and I went on a long-my-life-story kind of an answer.
I saw his face nodding in boredom and carelessness. Then after we strayed from the question into other conversations, he said, "that what I asked, why do you want to start doing consulting?"
I said, "Sir, I realize that this is what I want to do. There is no reason I delay it if I can start now!" He looked me in satisfaction that I finally answered his question and said, "Fair enough."

Another problem that I am realizing now is that I did not ask them many questions. I mean to be honest, I don't have questions.
I have spent hours and hours reading about them, and they wont give me any different questions. I knew that I like them, I knew why I want to work for them.
Idiot me, I should've just asked for the heck of it!

Anyways, currently I am waiting for their call back. I am actually finishing this post in the plane. We are about to land in a few minutes. I have never been more anxious to get back on the ground or land like this time, because there is like a 5% chance that they have called and left a voice mail saying whether I got an offer or not.

Anyways, I felt good after the interview, as I did not shoot myself in the head at any specific point in the interview. I could've done better, as there is always room for improvement. I did not do excellent, but again, I did not do bad.

Ya'll will know as soon as they get back to me.