And the result is...

Well, I'm glad that's all over and done with for the moment. After spending a few days putting myself through the wringer mentally, it's nice to be able to sit back and relax.

To my great surprise, the interview process turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant experience. I'll confess I was extremely nervous when I walked in, and this was compounded back the fact that I found myself sitting in a room with all the other candidates for the position - about eight of us, whittled down from some 120. They all seemed a pleasant enough bunch, though I didn't get much of a chance to talk to any of them before the presentation began (during which the 2 people dressed in suits were duely chastised for their attire) and I was shortly whisked away to begin the first part of the interview proper.

Kudos to the team conducting the interviews, since they managed to make it a painless process, despite the fact I had a video camera pointed at me the entire time. I find it difficult to recall exactly how I presented myself (my mind has a habit of blanking out these things), but I'm reasonably certain I gave them an accurate portrayal of who I am and what I can do. I can do no more really.

After this initial step I had a personality test (cue obligatory "I'm sure I have one," joke that I know the interviewer has heard a million times before, but I couldn't stop myself), followed by a presentation, again captured on video tape, on how I would solve a particular UI problem. This last bit is when I think I let myself down a little. We had a choice of three problems and I chose one which gave me a lot to talk about, but we also had to sketch out our ideas and here I only managed to produce the most rudimentary of drawings. Not only were they poor, but they were being kept to show whoever is going to make the final hiring choice. Had I realised that I'm sure I would have put a bit more effort into them. As I said, though, I did have plenty to talk about, and sketches aside, I don't think I did too badly. Mind you I'm still quite confident that I won't get the job. Just a gut feeling again, though as Kevin rightly pointed out before, it may well have gone better than I thought it did, but right now I don't think it matters much. I went in, gave it my best, and if I don't get the position, no great loss - life still carries on. We were all told that if we do fail, they'll make our tapes available to us and provide us with feedback as to how we performed in all the stages, if we wish. It's certainly an offer I plan to take them up on.

I should here something about it next week, anyway.