New Year, New Job

fred@fredjean.net (Frederic Jean) — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 12:57:13 +0000

I lost my job a couple weeks ago. It wasn't such a bad thing since I was trying already job hunting. Of course, I was hoping to have a new job lined up before leaving. The good news is that loosing my job allowed me to switch to full time job hunting, focussing on networking with recruiters and getting interviews. I did learn a few things in the process.

First, you should not wait until you are in need of a job before networking. My regular attendance to the local Java Users Groups and other geek gatherings turned out to be very helpful. I got a few very good leads through people that I met at the Boulder and Denver JUGs. It also helped getting access to recruiters since my name was already familiar to a few.

Second is that Holidays aren't such a bad time to look for work. Yes, many people are taking vacation time. Many are hiring managers actively looking for people to fill positions. Others are the recruiters that they are talking to. There are still many actively looking. The first few days on the hunt were filled with calls to recruiters, returning calls to recruiters and even a phone interview. Even a blizzard didn't quite stop the activity.

Third, that Holidays can limit the opportunities you have access to. A applied to a few interesting positions through friends, only to learn that the hiring managers would be in vacation for up to a few weeks. I therefore had to make a choice: would I be willing to wait for the manager to come back? Should I pass on good, solid opportunities in order to wait for the managers or HR to contact me? Truth is that I realized that I really wanted to get back to work even after a few days of unemployment.

Finally, know what and where you are looking for. I got many calls from recruiters who wanted me to apply to positions in the DTC, in Chicago and even one in Arizona. Living in Thornton would have made all of these a little difficult to get to. So I was insistent that I was looking for work within a certain geographical area of Denver. I also had to decide early on what kind of work I was looking for. I did apply to Google and other high tech startups, but I didn't fare so well. Turns out that having a computer sciences degree was very important to the recruiters. So I did change my focus to target positions where having a CS degree wasn't so critical.

So, through the holidays and a couple snow storms I ended up receiving an offer from TransZap. TransZap is a small company based in downtown Denver focussing on providing billing services to the oil and gas industry. I was impressed by the people that I met through the interview and I did like their pragmatic approach to the development process. I'll be joining TransZap on January 3rd. This looks like a solid company, with a good product and good people. I am excited to join such a team.

Out of my mind...: Category Job Search

New Year, New Job