1 is a natural resource specialist position with inland fisheries and 2 are tech positions. 1 with inland fisheries and 1 with coastal fisheries. Does anyone have any advice on making me less nervous?

Bourbon

quote:

---

1 is a natural resource specialist position with inland fisheries and 2 are tech positions. 1 with inland fisheries and 1 with coastal fisheries. Does anyone have any advice on making me less nervous?

---

You're normally a pretty quality troll. Do you ACTUALLY have interviews or are you just trying to scare us outdoors people?

Just don't sweat it. Be professional. Be polite. Be confident. Be prepared. Prepare for the interview by having questions for them and be prepared for the questions they'll ask you. Study the positions you're applying for and if possible the people who are interviewing you. Good preparation is the best way to get rid of or reduce the nervousness. Wear a suit and tie. Be 15 minutes early.

I interviewed with them for a construction management position about 4 years ago. I got the offer and accepted it, but then another offer came that was closer to home and paid a lot more so I backed out.

Good luck!

Was TPWDs law clerk in 2009, awesome place to work. Still maintain relationships with its General Counsel and staff attorneys. Good luck!

You got to wear a suit and tie for TPWD interview? Guess that kind of thing struck me as more of a 'Jeans and a button down' kinda thing.

quote:

---

You got to wear a suit and tie for TPWD interview? Guess that kind of thing struck me as more of a 'Jeans and a button down' kinda thing.

---

Always better to over dress for an interview than under dress.

quote:

---

Just don't sweat it. Be professional. Be polite. Be confident. Be prepared. Prepare for the interview by having questions for them and be prepared for the questions they'll ask you. Study the positions you're applying for and if possible the people who are interviewing you. Good preparation is the best way to get rid of or reduce the nervousness. Wear a suit and tie. Be 15 minutes early.

I interviewed with them for a construction management position about 4 years ago. I got the offer and accepted it, but then another offer came that was closer to home and paid a lot more so I backed out.

Good luck!

---

Solid advice for any interview with any company. People that just show up without doing some prep on the company they are interviewing with are just making it harder for themselves.

I agree....to a point. It just surprised me, that's all.

Good advice from Hoss. I used to work Coastal and interviewed with Inland a few times. Don't bull**** anyone on your experience or lack of. Be honest because they will see through it. If you don't know the answer to a question, just explain that you don't know but do explain how you will learn. Be familiar with water sampling techniques, common testing chemicals, common scientific names, etc... You're selling yourself. They aren't hiring you for your knowledge... they are looking a team member who can work with others. Can they trust you to take out a boat, a truck, and a few thousand in equipment?

This is very much their policy:

quote:

---

They aren't hiring you for your knowledge... they are looking a team member who can work with others.

---

I was in the Wildlife Division for almost 12 years, but was on interview panels for various positions in other divisions (including Inland Fisheries oddly enough). Wildlife was a tad bit different in that knowledge was rated extremely high, but if you fell in the odd duck category you probably weren't making it into the top 3 (we'll just say a lot of guys with PhDs fell into this category). Pretty good stuff so far. Sort of odd, people will say a TPWD interview is the easiest interview they have ever done, or the hardest......usually depending on how well you prepare (or if going for a wildlife biologist position, and they decide to do a 10 specimen plant ID test on various grasses from across the district).

*Generally you will get what I call the 33% rule...33% are qualified on paper but no way in hell they could do the job (ie straight out of college ORRR Mr. Oddball PhD), 33% that yeah they could do the job but nothing really sticks out, and 33% that heck yeah we want you (this is usually 1-3 people, usually 1 is a clear cut winner, the 2A and 2B).
*Read the job description backwards and forwards. In general, about 1/3 of the interviewed candidates you will seriously question if they knew what they applied for.
*Read through ALL KSAs....there will usually be at least one question for each. In your mind prepare for 2 setups. "Tell is about your experience with ______" or a potential scenario or skill test that may go with that KSA. For example some supervisors like a simple "Tell us about your experience the the Microsoft Office suite of programs". And let me tell you, I have seen multiple candidate shoot themselves on that questions, usually by giving too much detail that raised BS flags. I've also seen them hand over a laptop with an Excel sheet of data and go "Here are a set of 5 questions, you have 5 minutes to do any calculations needed" (usually sort in some manner, sum function and standard deviation". If you know what you are doing, it might take 30 seconds. I've also seen them give the candidate 3 relatively jacked up Power Point slides and say "you have 10 minutes to make these slides audience friendly". I've also seen them (urban wildlife biologist) tell the candidate ahead of time to have two prepared 3 minute presentation...one aimed at a 3rd grade class and one for a city council.
*As stated before, if you don't know an answer, simply state that and say how you would go about getting the answer...that is often very impressionable to the panel. The panel IS subject matter experts, and they do not take kindly to BRing.
*In nearly every interview there is one seemingly super simple question that will kill half the candidates. In Wildlife, that question was often "Aldo Leopold identified the the 5 basic tools of wildlife managers, what are they?". I have seen ONE candidate not know the answer, but successfully nailed them BSing his way through it (he also ended up being the top candidate)......usually this super simple question is a pretty basic ecology related question.....It could also be pulling out some random equipment related to the job and asking what it is used for.

Yeah, don't do like me when I interviewed with TPWD. My interview was at 1 PM at the "Nature Center" in Tyler. I pretty well refuse (pretty much can't) drive in dress clothes. About 12:45, I am casually pulling into the address I had pulled up for "TPWD in Tyler", and quickly figured out I was at the Game Warden office. Long story short, I was on the wrong damn side of Tyler 15 minutes before my interview wearing shorts and a Philmont t-shirt. So I drive like a bat out of hell through Tyler, changing clothes at red lights. 2 minutes before my interview I was sitting in my underwear in the parking lot finishing changing. Walked in and the first thing I had to do was hand over my zip disk, and do my prepared presentations to 6 guys blankly staring at me.

Walked out pretty well knowing I had the job.

I then drove to Kerrville to interview for a District Biologist position in the Hill Country. When I realized that there were 5 of us interviewing for the position, and I wad the ONLY non-TPWD person getting interviewed, I chalked it up to interview experience.

Yours is in the Top 5 of TexAgs user names

quote:

---

Was TPWDs law clerk in 2009, awesome place to work. Still maintain relationships with its General Counsel and staff attorneys. Good luck!

---

That sounds awesome. I may have to look into that.

From experience, ursus is 100% correct with everything he said.

What kind of work are you looking for?

quote:

---

quote:

---

Was TPWDs law clerk in 2009, awesome place to work. Still maintain relationships with its General Counsel and staff attorneys. Good luck!

---

That sounds awesome. I may have to look into that.

---

Feel free to PM for details.

Second what Ursus said. Know the KSAs and for ones that you don't match up well with, make sure you are prepared to tell them what you plan to do to fix where you don't meet it or who/where you would go to get help or support with it. Also 2nd not trying to BS on stuff you don't know.

Another thing to research a bit. Look at the supervisor, and then where the duty station actually is. Inland fisheries has more onsite supervisors, but it's not uncommon to have a supervisor in another town. Figure out who on the panel you would actually be dealing with day in day out. If it is not the supervisor, watch for who is fairly quiet in the first 3-4 questions but actually paying attention to your answers. Remember, they do like team members. The supervisor will make the ultimate decision, but will usually give great latitude to the onsite person/future close coworker.

For the biologist position, there will likely be someone on the panel a step or two higher than the actual hiring supervisor. Don't worry about that person too much, they are typically focused on ethics, HR and "fit". Then you will have the hiring supervisor, engage him/her pretty well. You'll probably get two other biologists for nearby, but may only see a handful of times each year. Friendly engagement, show your knowledge and DO NOT BS, these are the ones that will get hung up on BSed technicalities. That quiet guy is probably the local guy that you will interact with on a regular basis, and pulls a lot of weight on the decision. By question 6 you want to be engaged with this person in some manner.

If the supervisor is onsite, it will change things a bit, but the panel dynamics is about the same.

Yes, I love profiling interview panels....and yes, the ultimate impression of the candidate is in the first 2-3 minutes.