Tem42 noticed that the daylogs have dried up lately, so here’s a grab bag of stuff that might be of mild interest, plus some venting.
I have been writing up and preparing to run Lost Gems of Yesteryear: Odyssey Two. I'll have more to say about this as the quest officially gets underway on June 20th. I hope you will participate! The more write-ups get listed, the better it works! Please note that you can find, and let me know about, favorite writeups at any time—you don’t have to wait for the 20th to do so.
I've been watching the 2016 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs. As a current resident of the Toronto Maple Leafs region, of necessity I have adopted other NHL teams at playoff time. For decades, one of those substitutes has been the Pittsburgh Penguins, so this year's playoffs have been exciting for me. The Finals have been amazing fast-paced hockey, and the San Jose Sharks' goalie, Martin Jones has been spectacular. For a low-to-no-talent beer league goalie like me, watching the 'tenders is a big draw of the professional game. Every game has been close and tense all the way through ... but tonight (June 12th where I am, though e2 thinks it's the 13th) the Pens have closed the deal. Whew! It's a tough loss for the Sharks, though, I feel badly for Jones, and for Joe Thornton and the other long-tenured Sharks players.
My dolorous job search continues to grind away. It seems that I have improved my resume and cover letter over the weeks, in that I am more successful in getting HR phone screens and initial interviews, but I'm not able to close the deal. In every interview I've had they want an experienced people manager who can also architect software, code when needed, provide technical vision, and more. I can speak comfortably to the people skills but I am a full decade removed from legitimate hands-on coding work, and it's costing me. I am clearly failing to win over the technical evaluators. I am rusty and I don't have experience with the latest languages and skills.
To date I have applied to 35 different positions. Of these, the posters of 16 opportunities did not reply at all. Three politely rejected my application by email without further contact. Four politely rejected me after an initial HR/recruiter screen, and one more simply stopped responding. One rather brusquely rejected me after a technical phone screen, and four more politely declined after a set of on-site interviews. Three positions were bad fits that we mutually agreed not to pursue. The last three are technically left active, but of those, two are overdue for follow-up and clearly about to end in rejection. The last is waiting to see if I pass the hiring managers resume screen, but the HR screener mentioned "hands-on coding" as a core requirement so I expect it will end like the others.
I really did not expect that I'd be out of work this long. I was, and am, confident in my skills and abilities, but either there's no market for what I have, or I can't sell it.
Bishop: That's it. Emergency venting.
It has always been my plan to switch to rebuilding my technical skill set if I got to six months with no job, and I'm now at seven and a half. With the slow summer period upon me, that’s the plan. My first project is to code up some small web tools to help with the LGoY:OT quest. Nothing that I do for that seems likely to address the perceived capability gaps that my interviews have identified, but I hope to gain a bit of self-confidence. I expect I’ll be lucky to land a mid-range developer job before my cushion from the severance runs out. That's my new goal, to drop back in seniority and get a basic individual contributor job that will bring in a paycheque. I am still working slowly towards a project manager certification too, because I need more than one iron in the fire.
My daughter and I biked past a Jiffy Lube today. She noticed a sign that says they’re hiring, and innocently pointed it out to me. Sure enough, there's an opening for a lubrication technician. That's not a choice that I’ll make today, but we’ll see what happens when the money from the severance runs out.