My Job, Old and New
Time for the oft-delayed employment update entry. As of this moment in time, I have been offered a position and I start next Monday. Oops, I guess I should have said "spoiler alert" before that last sentence.
I was laid off at the end of June. The Information Resources reorganization was over a year in coming, so it isn’t as if I was caught by surprise. I made sure I had six month’s of expenses in savings and I had additional investments I could call on if my unemployment lasted longer than that–although I couldn’t imagine being out of work for more than 6-8 weeks. I left my job with nine weeks of severence pay to tide me over.
Things I learned while being unemployed.
1. It sucks to be laid off at the beginning of the summer. I owed myself some downtime and I took the first two weeks of unemployment as recovery/vacation time, but I quickly found that the corporate hiring process comes to a grinding halt when everyone else takes summer vacation. After my two-week break, I started dropping resumes and applications wherever and whenever I could. The result? Crickets. From mid-July through the end of August I either heard nothing or heard that a position had already been filled. I got that uh-oh feeling and it got stronger all August-long. Would I ever be able to find a job?
2. Resumes are different then they were just 10 years ago. I had to completely redo my resume so it met current standards. It was a pain, but I must admit that I ended up with a smoking hot resume.
Finally, Labor Day rolled around and all of the vacationing hiring managers returned to work. And my telephone/emailbox starting blowing up. I think my process stretched out a bit longer than a younger workers rehire process might take, but I have gotten at least one request for more information a week for the last two months.
I quickly narrowed my search down to three primary employers/jobs and I went through the phone screening then phone interview then live interview process with each. One of the positions was with the University of Maryland system and I knew that this would be a longer-than-normal decision making process, so I weighed that job and it’s benefits against the other two and then thanked them for the opportunity and withdrew myself from consideration. That left the two positions.
These two positions were different enough to warrant consideration just on the job duties. Job 1 had slightly better benefits than job 2, but the duties of job 2 were slightly more attractive. Job 1 was with a non-profit while job 2 was with a for-profit. Both would give me easy access to the ballpark when next year’s baseball season starts. I received formal offers from both.
I hate to sound greedy, but I accepted the job 1 offer primarily because of the difference in direct compensation. Job 1 offered a base salary that is 17% greater than my salary with the last job. Job 2’s offer was a 4% increase. The job 1 position is bonus eligible (8%-12%) based on personal (50%) and company performance (50%). The vacation time offered by job 1 was also a week longer then job 2. So I’ll claim that I went with the longer vacation time instead of the higher pay and then I won’t feel so greedy.
So I start next week and I’m quite excited to get back into a regular schedule of work. I also look forward to the challanges of a new job and I will admit to looking forward to a regular paycheck every couple of weeks.
My unemployment saga is nearly at an end–I guess it is technically over since I’ve accepted the offer and have a start date–and I will be fine if I finish off my working career with this employer in 10-12 years. Mrs. Ender and I just checked our estimated Social Security earnings and it will make sense to wait until full retirement age to receive Social Security then it will be to take it at age 62.
Other than that, I’ve got nothing.
Ender is out.