Doing what it takes

I'm thinking that at some point (and perhaps it's already happened), these posts will be getting monotonous. There are things you need to do on a daily basis to find a job:

• Check the emails or rss feeds from any automated job agents you may have set up. This is like panning for gold. You slop through a lot of stone to find the gold nuggets.
• Review and evaluate position postings. Basically, once you see the gold, you have to figure out if it's fool's gold or real gold. This involves researching companies.
• Initiate and maintain contacts. A lot of this is emails and the rest of it is phone calls. If you're not initiating these, they you're responding to them.
• Watering and pruning the resume - every day you can find new ideas on how to improve your resume. The secret is to figure out what advice is useful and what advice is noise.
• Clicking "send" or "apply for job". Right now this is hard for me. Not that I don't want to apply for jobs, but most of the jobs posted involve some compromise in location, salary or position from your ideal job. I know I will begin to compromise these things, but in the first week or two, you like to believe that you'll find that perfect job next door to your house. The reality is that you won't and every job involves some kind of a compromise.
• Building and maintaining your self-confidence. All of the job descriptions are looking for the perfect candidate. I am not perfect. There are experiences I don't have. There are certifications I don't have. I haven't worked in every industry under the sun. However, I need to be able to convince prospective employers that I am the right candidate for their job and if I'm to do that, I need to convince myself.

So, other than those daily steps, I made more connections to former co-workers, arranging for a lunch or dinner meeting in one case. I sent my resume out to a couple more contacts. Oh yeah, I contacted the outplacement agency that my former employer signed me up for. I'll meet with them next week. I'm not sure what they can provide in terms of help, especially since I've dealt with this firm at least twice before (that sounds sad). Some of what I know about finding a job comes from them, but it has been 7 years and they may have some new ideas to offer.

Another activity yesterday was emptying out my briefcase. It was filled with stuff I had grabbed from my desk as I left my former employer. I didn't take much, just some pictures and personal items I brought in. i found a box in the basement that contained similar stuff from other jobs and dumped the briefcase contents there.

I also worked on organizing my contacts. I tried to synchronize my Outlook contacts with Google contacts using Plaxo, but the results were not what I wanted. Plaxo holds both contact lists, but they aren't merged. It's probably something I did or didn't do, so I'll take another look at that later.

Today the wedding plans are beginning to creep in. I'll be on-line most of the day, but tomorrow, my hours will probably be about 4 and the none on Friday. So if you don't see a post, don't worry. I'll be having fun!

Reaching out

Yesterday began the somewhat uncomfortable process of calling people I know to inform them of my situation. I've never been real good on the phone and there are often debates at my house some nights when the phone rings over who is going to answer it. But an important part of networking is calling people and making the personal connection. I talked to three people yesterday, some closer friends than others. I probably have the same number to do today.

It's not really hard to sound upbeat right now, because I am. I think as time goes by, it might get a little harder. But generally, I have a story to tell why I'm available and each time I repeat it, I get to pare it down to the essential elements so that it sounds more like those infamous "elevator pitches". From Wikipedia: An elevator pitch (or elevator speech) is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds or 100-150 words). This is something I'll need when I go for an interview, so it's good to hone it.

The rest of the day was spent emailing and searching the web. I still have a ways to go before I feel like I'm set up with the job agents I want and I still have a number of web sites to review as resources. So many job sites, so little action.

A surprise happened yesterday when I got a call from a recruiting firm. The woman who called said she had gotten my name from a person who's name I didn't recognize. She had a copy of my resume or at least had seen my LinkedIn profile. When we emailed later in the day, she told me she had gotten my name from her boss at her firm, still a name I didn't recognize. Although I've given my resume out to a number of people, I still like to have some control over where it goes. It's quite possible somebody may have forwarded it. Mostly I'm not concerned, but it is a mystery.

The next few days may see a bit less activity on my part. My daughter's wedding is Saturday, and there are details to deal with this week. Probably no searching on Friday; maybe some on Thursday and tomorrow should be a fairly full day.

The search goes on.

Face(booking) the job market

Friday was Facebook day. At the urging of Kreblog and others, I finally opened an account. I still have a bit to learn. Chats started popping, messages started flowing, acceptances were coming in. Lots of happenings. I still need to figure out how to turn this into a job seeking tool for my immediate needs. I also don't want to get totally sucked into the vortex of social networking at the expense of job searching, which I can see myself doing because it's a compelling tool.

I spent a good amount of time on Friday researching acronyms (PMI, ITIL, CMMI) that were on a job posting for which I applied. I found that while I have knowledge in these areas, certifications are a way of proving that knowledge which is why I suppose employers ask for these things. I'm willing to get certifications, but I need to be a bit further down the job search road before I want to invest time in those versus time in searching.

I have to remind myself on occasion not to get "job lock". You know what it is: when you see that job that you'd be perfect for at the perfect company paying good money, you fixate on getting that job and the general search or progress you've made on other jobs takes a back seat. It usually happens when you get the first interest from the employer, but as I researched the certifications, I realized that although I was gaining general knowledge, it may or may not help me for other jobs I might be considering.

Another significant activity on Friday was finding my old cover letter file. What I've done in the past is save paragraphs that I might put into a cover letter so that I can cut and paste some of what I need. For example, if a job posting asks for good communication skills, I have a paragraph that lists a specific example where I've demonstrated good communication skills. Of course each paragraph might need to be tuned for the specific circumstances of the job I'm applying for, but it's nice to have a starting place.

I did take the weekend off from job hunting, but not from worrying. With my daughter's wedding a week away and with the construction on the house going over budget, the amount of months we can survive my unemployment keeps going down. I guess I'd better get back to the hunt.

Working at getting work

Ahh, the enthusiasm of the first few days of unemployment. You are motivated, you are excited by the prospects and you have yet to deal with rejection. I remember these moments well from the last time I was laid off and I also remember the challenges of staying in this frame of mind.

It was a busy day for me yesterday. I spent time reviewing my severance agreement. It all looks good so I'll sign it and get it back to my former employer. I worked on my resume - it was already mostly up to date so with a few tweaks, I was ready to use it. It got sent to a couple of contacts, one of which surfaced when a fellow blogger read my post and indirectly got in touch. Her high tech husband now has a copy. The other contact is a contractor at my former employer who reached out to help.

Which leads me to another topic. I received a wonderful outpouring of support from associates at my former employer. I received many text messages, emails, IM's and phone calls. Most expressed the same shock I felt. All of them expressed their appreciation for my time in their lives and I did the same in return. This separation is tough for me, but it also causes the ones left behind to wonder what happened. It leads to the thought that if it could happen to a guy like me, it could happen to anyone. I've often said that while my former company was a little wacky, the people there are great. That statement has been validated again.

I applied for a job on-line for which I am probably qualified and probably missing an essential certification. I spent some time researching that company and contacted a family member who worked there to see if he could add some juice to the on-line application process. The frustration with the online process is twofold. One, your resume gets uploaded, but then it gets scanned and munged up into tiny boxes. Much of the resume is lost in translation. The second frustration is that there is no capability to add a cover letter. The cover letter is an important part of shaping your experience to their needs. I'm going to try to send one of those through my family member to see if he can get it to the hiring manager.

I spent some time getting my LinkedIn profile up to date. That's in better shape although I think I can still improve it. I also plan on enrolling in Facebook, something my carpool mate Kreblog has been suggesting for months. In a later post I'll probably expound on how electronic networking has changed the job search rules.

Got a lot going on today, too. I received some welcome comments on my resume so I need to work on that a little. Several leads have been sent my way that I need to investigate and respond to. I have yet to subscribe to the job boards (I have an old agent still running on Yahoo that needs review as establishing myself on others). Kreblog sent me some tools to scan the boards and turn the results into RSS feeds:
http://www.indeed.com/
http://www.simplyhired.com/
http://www.jobster.com/
I'll be trying these out.

Busy life for the first few days. Catch you all on Monday.

First Day of the Next Phase

And so begins the first day of the next phase of my life. Yesterday, I was laid off from my job of almost 7 years. With all things like this, in hindsight there were signs, and then again there weren't. I was aware that the company was considering layoffs; my boss had solicited input on a few people in our organization. And I felt like I was being cut out of meetings by the consultants who were brought in to run the project I had been working on. So, maybe I should have known but I don't generally seek out signs of bad news. I never could quite ask my boss, "might I be affected?" I'm pretty sure he would have lied.

Our company is very sales driven and when the economy goes bad and the sales are down, they basically have one response: roll heads. I had seen it twice in my seven years, and I had arrived on the scene a scant six months after a fairly major layoff. I guess one spot of good news is that I'm on the leading edge of this one so I won't have to watch as others are affected. And, given the generally cheap nature of this organization, they gave me an o.k. (not generous) severance to help me make the transition.

On the bad news side, we were at a stage in our lives where the money was flowing out faster than usual. The combination of a construction project at our house and my daughter's impending wedding has caused us to dip into reserves that might normally have helped us make the transition a bit easier. Timing is everything.

Back to good news. I've been through this before so I know what has to be done. My resume has been kept fairly up to date. I have a number of friends and associates who will help me in any way they can, including my now ex-boss.

Over to the bad news. I'm not getting any younger. The economy is not great right now. My skills are not technology specific in a market that seems to increasingly value specific experience. Prices are going up.

Good news. I don't have to drive 45 miles each way any more. I don't have to cross the stream of traffic from the neighboring high school at 7:15.

Bad news. I'll miss the time I spent with the guys in my carpool. I'll miss the daily association with the people at work whom I've grown to respect and to care about.

Good news. When (not if) I find another job, I'll expand my circle of friends. I'll have some time for home projects, although it will be at the expense of taking time away from job hunting.

Enough of that for a while. It's time to review the severance matierials, update my resume, work on a job search plan and begin linking in to networking and job sites. I'll probably be posting to this site as a way of keeping a few people informed of my search and progress. Stay tuned and carpoolguy becomes jobsearchguy.

Happy Birthday DBZ

It was fitting that Das Beak Zwei turned 39 (thousand) today, just a scant six miles from the location of the event that brought me to this particular bike. It was almost 7 years ago when I dumped my ST1100 at Exit 2 on Rt 101. That crash has been chronicled (click link), but not the circumstances of the arrival of DBZ.

It wasn’t until the fall after my accident that I began to ride again, and even then, it was just a couple of short jaunts on my “SlightHawk” (a Honda Nighthawk 650, circa 1984). Around springtime of the following year (2002), I began to think about another bike. The insurance company had settled quickly and fairly on the ST11 (thanks Progressive) and the money was sitting in a separate account waiting on my decision. I had lots of help from my buddies who would occasionally find listings on IBMWR and send them along. I began to think seriously about a BMW R11GS – I had ridden one before and enjoyed its tall stature and wide handlebars for easy leverage.

Because of my lack of a capable bike, I did not ride out with my friends that year on a trip down the Blue Ridge Parkway (known now as the “Blue Lips Tour” – I guess VA/NC can get pretty cold in May when you’re at elevation. However, on the way back, the friend who got most of our group onto BMW’s (lets call him BeemerBoy), stopped off to look at one in VA that he had found on IBMWR. He called me up on the cell phone from right next to the bike, put the seller on, and the deal was struck for DBZ. The bike in 2002 was 6 years old with only 16K miles – pretty low miles for a bike that’s meant to ride in all kinds of road conditions. I struck a deal with the seller, with the understanding that it might be a few weeks until it could be picked up.

A few weekends later, I met up with BeemerBoy in NJ. Arriving on a Friday night, we decided to make the trip down and back to VA on Saturday, spoon on a new set of tires (pre-ordered) and send me on my way Sunday. We got up early, jumped into his Taurus SHO, and pulled his trailer down to VA. After loading the bike, we headed back, listening to the music of our youth and recounting riding tales, especially those of recent Blue Lips Tour.

Sunday dawned warm in NJ. After a morning ride to acclimate myself to my new ride, we worked our way north through western portions of NJ. For those of you who have only experienced the NJ turnpike or parkway, it is probably hard to imagine the variety of riding conditions in NW NJ. After dumping me out on I84, we split off and I headed north. All was going pretty well until the rains came.

It would be an understatement to say that it began to rain. It began to monsoon. At first I thought I could take shelter under an overpass, but the first one I came to was so damn high, that there was little shelter from the wind whipped rain. Eventually I got to an exit and I pulled off the highway searching for refuge. I tried to hide under the overpass from the highway exit I had just left, but it was not wide enough to safely park. I rode on until I got to restaurant. I ended up parking next to a loading dock, climbing up and standing under a short roof that protected me from the worst of the downpour. Imagine the surprise of one of the cooks when he opened the door to the dock for a smoke, and saw a man standing there in a vinyl riding suit wearing a helmet.

After a while, the rain lessened from Monsoon to Steady and I decided to take off again. Unfortunately, I had exited at one of those “you can get off the highway here, but you can’t get back on” exits in CT. After riding around and looking for signs, I was soon back on the highway. Eventually the rain cleared and other than road spray, I began to dry out. Unfortunately, as they often do, the violent rainstorms were harbingers of a cold front coming in. By the time I hit MA, my hands, having sweated up inside rubber gloves, were chilling fast. I pulled into a fast food joint just before the MA pike to have a cup of coffee and to warm up. I felt more like pouring the coffee on my hands than drinking it.

After that respite, I moved on. There was one more stop where I stopped at a rest area in MA to dry out my face shield. Unfortunately, the MA Highway Department decided that they didn’t need to stock paper towels in their men’s rooms. After a long session with a blow dryer, I was on the last leg.

The six years since that day have been good ones with DBZ. She still runs great, helped by occasional maintenance from BeemerBoy. She’s been to all coastal states in the East all the way down to a quick touch into South Carolina. She’s been several states deep. She’s been deep into the woods on roads that her owner had no right to ride. She’s been a capable two up tourer. She had a string of over 3 years of being ridden every month. She waited a year while my back recovered from surgery.

Happy 39K Birthday DBZ and many more.

Ice Out 2008

While we suffer through global warming, we just got out of the second snowiest winter in the history of NH. Perhaps it's been too cold to snow until now?! Anyway, if this blog does nothing else for me, it does serve as the journal for when the ice leaves my pond. Here's ice out* for the last three years:

2005 - April 7
2006 - March 27
2007 - April 15

And this year, official ice out is.....(drumroll).......April 10.

*Ice out is defined as the last day I've seen a chunk of ice on the pond. Light skimcoat refreezings need not apply.

Update April 28: No, there's no more ice. I just wanted to post the Lake Winnepesaukee ice out dates (thanks to Kreblog).

2005 April 20
2006 April 3
2007 April 23
2008 April 23

We're not too far off and yes, 2006 was unusually early for both my pond and the big lake.

Direct link to over 100 years of Lake Winnepesaukee ice outs here.

Seriously

Is there any reason that local news stations need to hype the wind?  I mean, it was practically the same coverage they give a significant snowfall (which is also overhyped).  They have a reporter on location near a flag so you can see the wind.  If they really want to show the effects of the wind, they should send one of those female or male reporters who have hair that is so sprayed that it looks like it is carved out of wood. 

Breaking news – Wind (no pun intended).  Story at 11.

Today's sky report

Hey, if there’s a rainbow when the sun comes out while there’s rain moisture in the air, how come there’s no “snowbow”?  I thought of this yesterday as I looked out the window while the sun lit up the clouds and the snow kept falling.

Paradox

There’s a pair of ducks who have taken up residence in my pond.  It’s not the first time and I’m guessing that the pond is a kind of highway motel on their way to whatever winter haven they travel.  But the weather has been so unnaturally warm off and on for the past few weeks, that I think they’re just waiting to see which way they should be heading.  If they follow the wing of geese that went over yesterday, they’ll head southwest.

Today's sky report

I wanted so much to like Carpoolers, the new sitcom on ABC Tuesday nights.  I mean, I am one.  A carpooler.  I spend at least 90 minutes a day (most days) with two other guys driving to and from work.  We talk about a lot of different things and it’s always amazed me how well we all get along given that our ages are each about 10 years apart (I get to be the old one).  A lot of what goes on in our carpool (which will stay in carpool), is thought provoking, funny and mostly entertaining.  We’re at our best when we’re inventing things, and you can find a lot of our best ideas in Kreblog’s excellent blog.

First, I have to admit I’ve only seen the first episode.  A vacation during the height of premiere weeks has given me a serious case of DVR backlog.  But I made it a point to watch the first episode as soon as I could and now I’m thinking I’d have been better off going to bed early.  The four characters were broadly drawn, with some classic sitcom personalities (the philandering divorced guy, the p-w family guy, the insecure guy and the young newlywed guy).  Done well, these personalities can lead to a successful run.  But the Carpoolers all seemed shallow; maybe it’s the fact that it’s only been 22 minutes of TV so far and you can’t reveal much in the way of complexity, but I’m not holding my breath.

I think what disappointed me most was the scenes in the car.  While we’ve been known to break out into song together (it’s a little hard because of the age differences – I can’t remember any words to songs written after 1979), we don’t cry.  There’s no crying in carpool.  And we don’t get real explicit about our certain parts of our private lives (who’s on top?  Ewwww!).  It also seems weird to me that these guys all work at different places and that there is special parking for carpoolers.  That must be a California thing.  Here in the east, we all work together and we park with the masses. It would be way cool, however, if the FE Everett turnpike would install a carpool lane.  We’d be pretty lonely, but we’d shoot through.

What does work for me is the funny scenes of other carpoolers.  Old carpoolers not moving with their blinker on.  Rich carpoolers eating sushi.  Chuckle. Chuckle.  And the kid, Marmaduke, has his comedic moments, or maybe that should be moment.  Interviewing on-line without pants.  Nice.

I will give Carpoolers a few more rides before I kick them off my DVR list.  They’d better develop some more creative plot lines and flesh out some interesting characters.  I have read that Rebecca Romijn will be making a guest appearance later in the season.  Wouldn’t mind having her in the carpool….

Today's sky report

Um, wait until next week.  The carpool hasn’t left the ABC park and ride yet.

Today's sky report

Hey. They stole our lives.  Watch "Carpoolers" on ABC tonight at 8:30 p.m.

Today's sky report

Angry weatherman continues: “Hey, why is it so friggin nice today when I have to be inside with all these damn computer models?”  Or, “Earthquake and a hurricane in Hawaii?  Can’t the weather gods arrange it so they only get one at a time?  What the heck!”

Today's sky report

Scattered showers today, like the thoughts in my brain.  One thought I’m beginning to coalesce - we need angry weatherpeople. As in, “I can’t believe it’s going to rain today.  What the heck?  Haven’t we had enough rain?”  Or, “You know, if the temperatures are going down, somebody better ante up for my heating bill.”

Today's sky report

I realize I’ve been kind of a non-blogger for quite a while, but I didn’t want to let April 15 get too far behind me before I declared it the official “ice out” day for 2007.  Yes, the ice on the pond is finally gone for good.  We had a lot of melting the week before April 15, but at night, the ice was reforming.  Finally, one morning, it wasn’t there, but a mallard duck was.  So that was ice out.  Unfortunately, ice out was followed by water in.  We had worse flooding than last year’s Mother’s Day floods.  This time the water completely covered the basement floor and was 3 inches deep in some places (yes, I used a ruler to measure).  The only good news is that I was more prepared this time with my own surface sump and almost everything up off the floor.  Two 100 year floods in two years.  Hmmm, how long does that mean I’m covered for?

Today's sky report

With the hysteria dead from the Daylight Savings Time change, the real takeaway is how the sky changed during the morning dog walk.  I went from being able to actually see sun, to seeing the beginning of sunrise.  Today, strawberry sky with blueberry clouds.  Not unlike the fruit on my cereal.

Today's sky report

I’m sure I’m not the first to observe this, but email is like a never-ending snowfall.  If you don’t keep shoveling it into the “deleted” folder, it will bury you.  And if get behind, you’re forced to use the electronic equivalent of a snow blower….the “delete all” button.

Today's sky report

The birches bowed to the ground under the weight of yesterday’s ice. As the wind began to blow, the clicking of the tree branches sounded like hundreds of broken wind chimes. The crunch of the frozen ground underfoot drowned out all other noise. Winter has arrived.

Today's sky report

The ice is on the pond, again. Maybe this time it will last. This sure has been a weird winter so far. Riding my motorcycle in 70 degree weather in January doesn't just seem wrong, it is wrong. Wrong, but enjoyable.