Well done!

As the champion of the second Amazing Race Asia, they are truly my heroes. Their excellent performances were of high quality and simply amazing. Despite Adrian’s hearing disabilities, this was not an issue that could deter their determination to succeed and to beat the ever-cocky Philipino boys. That was, from the-disabled-versus-the-able perspective, really symbolically historic.

As I am still weeping over their triumph, I can closely look at my life now, which has been into such an amazing race on its own.

My Amazing Job-hunting Race.

Really, there have been a tremendous amount of roadblocks and detours along this race. I have embarked on a rough race – I have run, stumbled, crouched, crawled, and run again, enduring all the required pain to complete the finishing line. It all started after my graduation in mid-2007. Equipped with a painfully-sought academic qualification and six years of teaching experience, I was ready to start the race against public and private universities around Malaysia.

Here I come!

However, there was one big problem. I didn’t have, er, a resume. Unbelievable, wasn’t it? Do you guys revise your resume regularly? Not me. Being a senior and having worked comfortably for more than six years, I didn’t remember where I kept my resume. It was so ironic for a Business Communication lecturer, who teaches students on how to write a resume, not to have one. Hehe.

So with great energy and deep enthusiasm, I created a newly updated resume with polished details and sent it to almost all public and private universities in Malaysia. As I was waiting for the first call of interview, I was shaking and nervous and scared. Just imagine, after being so complacent for six years, you will have to be evaluated and assessed again. It is not easy to be taken down to the root again after you have established and enjoyed certain status-quo.

The ‘proceedings’ had finally come. I was called for several interviews.


ONE

My inaugural interview was at Universiti Putra Malaysia in late November 2007. Three senior ladies conducted the session. They looked daunting, but strangely enough, I was more than relaxed to answer their questions. I was later deemed overqualified since the position offered was only a contract language teacher, which would not suit my master’s degree. However, I convinced them that I was ready for the ‘downgrade’ because I just wanted to teach in a university even though I had to outdo my own qualification. I was desperate, wasn’t I?


TWO

The second interview followed a week after the first interview. I drove my car all the way to Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Johor and took an emergency leave. There were four candidates and I was the only male candidate. That would me my winning point, I thought, considering the gender quota. Haha. And this really boosted my confidence to win them over. In the interview room, there were three vulnerable interviewers who were about to be ‘swallowed’ by my actions. They asked me to conduct a mock teaching and I did this as professionally and hilariously as possible. It was a real fun because all of the interviewers really acted like ‘crazy students’. In the end, they said that I was too energetic. I think it was a compliment.

THREE

2008 started extremely well for me. Universiti Putra Malaysia called me again in the middle of January for a second interview. This time around, I had to sit before the Vice Chancellor, which scared me to death. After waiting for more than one hour, I was ushered into a gloomy and cold-looking room and seated in front of the top three management officers in UPM. They asked me several general questions which, quite unexpectedly, were far easier than what I had anticipated. It took only five minutes. The last comment from the Vice Chancellor was, “Oh Hilmi, I have a lot of friends in Pasir Mas too.” I just smiled. I learnt later that the Vice Chancellor is a Kelantanese.


FOUR

At the end of January, I received a letter from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, offering me a second interview. This was the toughest interview of all. As it was a group interview, I was put together with other four candidates. The interview room was tense as I was continuously inundated with threatening questions from six members of the Office of Deputy Vice Chancellor, including the Deputy Vice Chancellor herself. Yes, the Deputy VC was a lady, an iron lady who knew how to put some real ‘actions’ during the interview. Her presence was deadly intimidating. She was like a hungry lion that could eat you raw and alive. Overall, it was quite a humiliating experience for me. I was terribly shaking and even considered to call it a quit.

FIVE

My fifth interview came from the International Islamic University Malaysia, my very own university. The date of this interview clashed with the previous interview at UTM, which I thought was an ironic coincidence. I wanted to cancel this interview because, if I were to make a choice, I would prefer UTM over IIUM (what a traitor!). However, the sweet officer in IIUM managed to reschedule my interview session and postponed it a day after my interview in UTM. Reaching IIUM early in the morning, I was tired since I had just gone through a battle with a hungry lion in UTM. Fortunately, the IIUM interview went so easily. Of course, the interviewers were my beloved ex-lecturers. Haha.


SIX

The race continued when Swinburne University (Kuching Branch) called me for a tele-interview. This interview was conducted barely a day after my interview in IIUM. Yes, I had three interviews in three days, in a row! Having these three interviews consecutively really wore me out. However, the tele-interview session with Swinburne University proved something worthwhile. I had never been interviewed on the telephone and I am still bewildered over the integrity of this type of interview which does not take visible body languages into account. So this interview must be very unique. All the three interviewers were Aussies who posed challenging questions to me. I was breathless for 40 minutes. It was quite surprising because most of the question were about my research. I had never known that a private university could be so much interested in research. At this point, I thought, working in Sarawak looked somewhat rewarding too.


SEVEN

The most recent interview that I was supposed to attend to was at Universiti Malaysia Terengganu. It is a newly-established university. So, getting a position there is surely promising since I could be one of the pioneers. But, due to some inevitable reasons, I rejected the offer.

Haha, isn’t tiring listening to my interview ramblings? I am tired too. Sometimes I just wish that I don’t have to go through this painful process. Life during these mind-boggling interviews was precarious. I was gripped with insecurity and uncertainties. My fate lay in so many unseen hands in various registrars’ offices in different universities. I was clueless, just like Helen Keller. I might not be blind and deaf like her, but at this moment, I was like being surrounded by a dense fog near the sea, not being able to see and hear what was coming. I could barely hear the sounds of faraway ships, but they sounded so distant and I was not sure which direction they were heading to. They might not possibly see me because I was hidden in that dense fog.

Until one afternoon, I sensed the approaching ship, when I saw a letter on my desk. I opened it and read:

TAWARAN JAWATAN PENSYARAH
UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

Labels: cekmi's hard times