1:00 p.m.
Last night an interesting opportunity came in. Scheduled a chat with the recruiter this morning. All went well until we discussed compensation and it turned out they hadn’t budgeted for the ranges other companies were talking. And that always feels a little bad, because I like to help people and I don’t like saying “no.” OTOH, I have a kid starting college this year, a retirement to save for (even more important with Social Security always in trouble and NEVER being dealt with because no politician wants to rip off that bandage), and comp is one of the ways a company shows it values you.
Maybe I need to do an entire separate post on how to evaluate your comp down to the last nickel to see where the sleight-of-hand is.
I owed a recruiter some times for a follow-up chat yesterday and let that slip. Taking care of that right after posting this.
I wonder if the skills needed to keep track of all the threads in a job hunt like this are considered in judging whether I have the skills for a job like this.
From the boards
Still no check-cashing or package forwarding scam job emails. Some of the contract roles are coming in with hourly rates listed. Still, none of them are high enough and most are for skills I don’t have. The oddest one was for a “Boomi Architect.” Not only do I not have Boomi anywhere on my resume, I always thought Boomi was Avatar Ang’s childhood friend, leader of the Earth Kingdom, and super-ripped old guy, not a tech stack.
4 p.m.
One of the big companies I’m talking to felt like it stalled out this week. HR sent an email confirming the HM had referred me and then asked me to complete an application in their public-facing hiring system. I did, then got an email a couple of days later saying I didn’t. I had a different email address on my resume (one at bulmash.com), but used my Gmail address to sign in. So although it said I didn’t need to do anything if I had used another address, I didn’t trust that. I went and redid the process with the bulmash.com address.
Today I emailed the HM and asked them to remind their HR partner that my application has an expiration date on it. To try to be fair to all parties, I’m trying to schedule up to 5 full-loop interviews in a 2 week period between Feb 7 and Feb 18, so any offers can be evaluated fairly and promptly.
In 2015, attending Intuit’s QuickBooks conference, I got to see Oprah speak. She said “you have to declare your intention to the universe.” I do that. When I have my interviews all locked down, I will write down a prayer and then carry it in my pocket until all the results of those interviews are in. But one thing I’m also mindful of is not to declare my intentions to the universe in a selfish or prideful way. I say “any offers” instead of “all offers” because though I feel and hope there will be some, I know that I am neither entitled to nor guaranteed even one.
I might not rub someone the right way. I might give a bad answer, I might be feeling shitty that day and not hide it well enough, or I might legit get beaten out by someone who is a badass in their own right (and possibly someone I know personally or by reputation).
I try not to see any of these roles as mine, but ones for which I’m privileged enough to compete. I will still have to win and accept the offer before it’s mine, and then, though I have not had a rug-pull on a offered-and-accepted role, I never rule one out. I’m an optimist with an inner pessimist to keep me humble.