Job Hunt! | ***Dave Does the Blog

Happy Service Anniversary!

I started a new job a year ago today.

One year ago, I started at the New Employer.

Working for one company for 30 years, being laid off, finding a new job after nine months, being unemployed again six months later, and going for almost two more years without a job … was not a good experience for me. It had an impact that, even a year later, I’m only beginning to understand. I mean, it gave me an opportunity to do some good things (helping my mom move out to Colorado, doing stuff to help the kid during senior year, etc.), but the weight of Not Working … was a heavy one for me.

But … hey, a year on the new job is a good thing to flush those mental toxins, something to celebrate, and goes a long way to make up for the above. The job has been a good one — not unalloyed, but with plenty of potential for the future, and using (intermittently) the talents I wanted to bring to gainful employment.

The salary coming in has been pretty nice. But working in general — even “losing” that eight hours a day — has been even better.

Onward and upward!

Would you … like … to have … a … job?

Job interviews are inherently flawed — can a robot make them better?

As someone recently (and at length) on the job market, I have a keen interest in the recruiting process and the efforts by companies to improve it.

Is a robot interviewer an improvement?

tengai recruiting robot — Tengai, the robot interviewer (on the right)

Meet Tengai, the job interview robot who won’t judge you – BBC News

Huh.

So job interviewing is kind of crazy, largely because everyone along the line — from HR / “Talent Acquisition” to hiring managers to (if you are so unfortunate) the hiring manager’s boss is convinced that They Know How To Tell Who Is The Right Candidate.

But studies have shown that interviewers are actually pretty awful at picking out good candidates for the job — the criteria that interviewers use, beyond the questions asked, simply do not correlate with ultimate job success. Heck, I know that from my own hiring manager experience, and yet I would still resist any suggestion that I shouldn’t interview someone.

This creepy robot person … well, they have the advantage of skirting around extraneous issues — visual prejudices around dress or weight or race or other extraneous factors (recognized or not) — and first impressions that may or may not have anything to do with job success. And I now that I did video interviewing during my last j0b hunt that, while frustrating to me by not providing a conversational / interactive experience, might have eliminated some extraneous factors as well (or might not have, since I didn’t get those jobs).

A creepy robot may seem … well, inhuman and demeaning, but it’s not much worse than a written set of questions one is asked to respond to. And, honestly, also probably no worse than some of the utterly IT-clueless talent acquisition folk who interviewed me and were clearly going off of a script that they didn’t understand.

Bottom line, the whole job interview/acquisition model is deeply flawed, which anyone involved with it will tell you … but by the same token, nobody has any silver bullets to make it better, either.

Back to School!

So this coming week, I’m back to school — five-day, 8-5 boot camp training for my PMP (Project Management Professional) cert. I’ve actually been managing projects and programs (and managing project and program managers) for a decade or two, but enough of the jobs I’m trying to get (and not doing so) seem to want that official “PMP” showing up on the resume that it seems necessary to do something about it.

I’m managing to do this via some federal grant money administered by the state through the county workforce centers for technology and engineering professionals who need (re)training to qualify for jobs in the current market.

I’ve been in company training courses a lot of times, but this is really the first Serious Training that Has A Big Test at the End that Actually Means Something since I was doing teaching credential work back in the (mumbleearly90smumble). So I’m feeling mildly stressed about the situation (more because of the certification test that will follow, as it seems to rely mostly on regurgitation of words and lists and stuff like that, rather than actual conceptual understanding, which is where i tend to do better).

Still, it’ll keep me out of trouble and off the streets. And be almost like a real job. 🙂

I also get a week-long ITIL Foundations class out of the deal (with certification testing, too), later in May. Oh, boy!

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Fast away the Old Year passes

It’s been a… stressful year.

The biggest stress was the whole most-of-the-year-unemployed thing. Which would have sufficed, but there were enough other blood pressure pumped during the year — not even counting US political madness — to challenge my hypertension medication mightily.

On the other had, there was a lot of positive in 2017. Life with my loving wife. A kid who gets niftier with every passing year. Some satisfying writing in November (and elsewhen). One of the most enjoyable RPG campaigns I’ve played in perhaps ever. Teeing things up for a remarkable 2018.

And that year has so many possibilities. A couple of incredible trips. A new chapter with the kid heading to college. My mom moving to Colorado. And, one trusts, a new job.

Past realities. Impending possibilities. With friends and family to make it all worthwhile. I look forward to it.

(Picture from a few weeks ago. :-))

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Perhaps I should get an exciting career as a warehouse worker

An executive networking group I’m in did some volunteer work at Food Bank of the Rockies this morning, helping pull donated goods (all corporate donations in our case) onto pallets, shrink wrap them, then identify what shipment they were for (mostly to food banks or religious groups that organize food distribution for poor in their communities).

In the course of the morning, the trio I was in loaded up six pallets six feet high full of light things (13 cases of Sriracha Cheez-Its! 30 boxes of Sweet Potato Flake Cereal) and not-so-light things (71 12-packs of Coconut Water! 12 20# bags of onions!), all for one particular organization. It was very tiring work, but interesting to see how it all worked.

FBR provides food relief for 30 Colorado counties and all of Wyoming, delivering close to 49 million meals a year. Volunteering helped me feel a part of that, which is a neat thing to do around the holiday season, but I suspect they can use help all year around. And I suspect there are other organizations of this sort in communities around the nation that could use help in these times.

(Also, they have a huge wall in the warehouse covered with giant checks — company X gives a $20K donation to the FBR, and there’s a photo op with the giant check, and they actually keep them here (after deposit, one presumes), mounted on the wall. It was kind of fascinating to see; not sure why I didn’t take a picture.)

In Album 12/19/17

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So in case you’re of a mind

Any positive ju-ju, good thoughts, intercessory prayers, or well-wishes you might be inclined toward, I’ve got an important job interview Friday that I would not at all turn down a scosh of meta-whatever you want to toss my way.

I haven’t talked much about my unemployment and job search and that sort of thing, as it too often feels like either crying in my beer or kvetching about something far too many others are going through.

But … it would be nice for a number of reasons to be done with the not-having-a-job, and the particular position I’m interviewing for (final round, as far as I can tell) would be an excellent fit in multiple dimensions for what I’ve been looking for. So … yeah, ‘twould be nice.

More anon. Thanks!

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Way down yonder in the Pumpkin Patch

One silver lining to unemployment is the opportunity to do some volunteer work. In today's case, I'm manning the annual pumpkin patch at our church (Good Shepherd Episcopal, 8545 E Dry Creek, Centennial, CO). All proceeds go organizations helping the homeless and hungry in the Denver metro area.

If you're in the area, come on down!

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Dammit … I keep misplacing my job helmet

I know I left it around here somewhere … a few decades ago … 🙂

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If you need further proof that the Social Security Number is not a security code

So one interesting thing I've learned from my foray into the world of Unemployment Insurance is that Colorado uses the SSN as your userid and identifier for pretty much everything (actually, use for unemployment claims was part of the original usage of the Social Security Card. Though they make some passing effort to keep it secret / keep it safe (e.g., when you log into the site, where your SSN is your default userid, the userid field is masked; when you sign in at the county work assistance office, you key your SSN onto a keypad (which, annoyingly, is a computer numeric keypad, not a phone keypad), it's clearly not actual security, because not only does the online system require an additional password (which you define), but for pretty much any functionality they also send you a 4-digit PIN through the mail.

So, let's count all of that:

1. Your SSN (which often comes printed on paperwork)
2. Your login account (SSN) password (definable by you)
3. A 4-digit PIN (assigned to you and sent through the mail)

So again we have the too-common tension between the SSN being some sort of sooper-sekrit code that you should never let anyone know because with it you can apparently have all your bank accounts stolen because banks are STOOPID, and an acknowledgment that it needs additional passwords because, well, people can pretty easily learn it and then do things with your unemployment account unless there is an additional layer of security.

I kind of wish we'd just treat it as a public national ID number and go on from there. As a security measure, it's nearly useless, even if assumed in too many places.

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How our body language affects others — and ourselves

We watched this 2012 TED talk by Amy Cuddy at the outplacement meeting I was at today, and it was fascinating, tying into a lot of other research I've read (about how intentionally smiling can relieve stress, or how crossing your ankles raises your blood pressure). The suggestions about actually assuming power poses as a part of going into a stressful encounter is … well, something I'll certainly bear in mind.

It was also, unexpectedly, inspirational.

Worth a watch.

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The Road Goes Ever On and On (And what job then? I cannot say)

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, ch. 1 “A Long-expected Party” (1954) [http://goo.gl/DgJfvf]

Last day in the office, which is a bit bittersweet.

The job hunt has been proceeding with semi-maddening slowness: there are positions, but people are responding soooo sloooooowly. The outplacement service I'm working with have a ton of good material and counseling, and I have some applications out, and some networking is occurring, and I'm spending far more time on LinkedIn than is probably healthy, and … well, no call-backs yet, but …

In some ways, reaching the end of the line at my soon-to-be-former employer is a bit of a relief: it removes a distraction and adds some focus to what I'm doing. It also removes a paycheck and adds some existential terror, but let's focus on the up side here, right?

My departure has also engendered a flock of "Wow, Dave, you're so going to be missed, you've been such a great help around here!" comments (along with "Are they insane?! That sucks!"), which has been kind of nice, too.

But time (and the Road) march on. And while what lurks ahead is scary in its uncertainty, it's time to move along.

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Job Hunt: Week 1

In which Our Hero doesn't actually do any job hunting, but preparation for same, which frustrates the heck out of him, but was probably the right thing to do, as long as job hunting ensues soon:

– I got my resume and LinkedIn profile much more up to snuff — and have some further stuff on both counts that needs doing.

– I got some shiny new head shots to use for profiles, resumes, etc.

– I consulted a close friend of the family, an executive HR professional, about my severance package and the reasonableness of same.

– I reached out and contacted some folk to establish some references I can use.

– I ran my resume past a few people for review. More of that to do.

– I considered What I Want To Be When I Grow Up, and how that might impact what I want to apply for in a job. That probably needs to be better codified.

– I battled back terror about the clock ticking, about spending any money whatsoever, about living out my days in a soggy refrigerator box in an alley, about … yeah, all of that.

Let's see what next week brings.

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As Archie Bunker once said, "Well, ain't that a kick in the groan?"

After 29+ years, and having survived through five CIOs and any number of reorganizations in our corporate IT group, I was notified on Wednesday that … I've been reorganized out of a job.

Sigh.

I did have a bit of warning the day before — an evening calendar appointment from my boss saying he was (surprise!) going to be in the office the next day and I needed to be, too, with a conference room listed and our HR rep CCed in. Having been the guy arranging this sort of thing in the past (the all too recent past, in fact), I had a more than a clue what was coming.

To be fair, my boss did it in person, not by phone. And it wasn't a "two weeks in lieu of notice, here's a box to put your cube stuff into" kind of deal; I get to work (for money) for another four weeks, wrapping some things up, and there's some outplacement assistance, etc. But it still, obviously, sucks (and has already canceled a trip we were going to be taking at the end of the month, dagnabbit).

I've already started the wheels rolling — updating the resume, reaching out to some folk to confirm I can do the reference thing, etc. I'll need to resurrect my moribund LinkedIn account, because, damn, everyone has a LinkedIn account for job hunting these days. I'm making to-do lists, as well as beginning to work on them. Progress!

I'm daunted by the prospect of a job hunt, though I'm assured by many people that with my talents and experience I should be able to find something good (as the old Imposter Syndrome smirks from the darker recess of my subconscious). We're in decent shape, money-wise (though it's just as well that the kitchen project was already 97% completed when this dropped), Margie still has her job (and our benefits), and I have some ideas on ways to restrain some of our expenses, just in case this stretches out.

I will probably talk more about what led to all of this at some point, but not at the moment. It gets into somewhat company stuff I don't presently feel comfortable discussing online, and discretion about such matters is something I take seriously (glancing about at any future employer who might stumble across this post).

I will, though, probably natter about the upcoming adventure as I go along, just because that's how I process this kind of thing. So you've been warned.

For the time being, though … well, I'll just hold my head erect and whistle a happy tune. Because that's cheaper than my preferred brand gin. 🙂

Buddy, can you spare a Lifehacker URL on resume design?