I heard via a former colleague that her current office was going to hire to fill a position in house. She also let me know that the positions at the Employee Training Center are almost always filled by in-house referrals. She gave my resume to the hiring manager, who said to go ahead and contact the staffing agency with his name. I sent my resume and an introduction via email, mentioning the hiring manager's name, to the staffing agency. They called me within ten minutes.
The staffing agency read through my resume right on the phone, trying to determine how much they should propose for a salary for me. If I had been prepared for negotiating my salary, then I would have demanded an hourly rate commensurate with my experience. I think they low-balled me and I was really kinda desperate to get the job so I just rolled with it. I didn't want Pratt & Whitney to turn me down because the proposed salary was too high. Turned out later they would simply have paid it without question, so I missed out on quite a bit of money.
The interview was approximately two weeks later. It was a fairly standard three-on-one interview. The hiring manager, another leader in the program and an H/R person. Easy questions. They really just wanted to know if I had any exposure to the manufacturing process, as that wasn't completely clear on my resume. The rest of the time they spent explaining the job to me. I asked a lot of questions. I have been through some exceedingly difficult interviews, so this seemed fairly lightweight to me.
Then they took me on a tour of the office and showed me where my desk would be. I figured that was a good sign.
The staffing agency warned me that it might take weeks before they offered me the job. They offered me the job the following day. However, I did not start until two months later, when the budget money for the position was finally approved.