A shame you didn't get the job. He sounds like a good boss.
Yeah, I think he would have been. I'm going to stay in touch with him just in case.
That sounds interesting.
It was. Apparently my resume and background are very strong but it's not reflected in my portfolio. They'd given me an art test to do, and I did it, and it was about that time that I started getting vibes that they weren't quite as enthusiastic about me as they had been. I asked if there was a quality issue with the results of the test, and he said no - but that because my portfolio wasn't directly reflective enough of the type of work he needed, he would have needed me to do some additional art specifically for them in order to tell whether I was going to be fulfill their specific requirements. I guess he wasn't comfortable asking for it when he wasn't sure if he was going to actually hire me.
It had become apparent in the past month that he needed someone with a different specialty to help out one of his team members who was completely swamped. He could only afford to bring on one person. The problem wasn't that I had priced myself out of the opportunity, but that there were so many incidental costs to bringing a new employee on, separate from their actual salary, that it wasn't feasible to bring on two.