I think I saw that coming.
I think I saw it coming.
Back in February I posted a link to Don Peck’s article about the long unemployment crisis and the impact it’s likely to have on our country and our culture. It clicked with some long-floating anxieties, and, sure enough, in April, my company closed its virtual doors. The company gave me a little bit of severance, better than a slap in the face but not by much.
It had been a long time coming. Sometimes I look back and I’m surprised that we lasted as long as we did.
The job search was… both better and worse than I expected, really. I decided that I would submit one job application or sit for one job interview, every weekday, until I found a new position. Weekends and Fanime I kept for myself, and I did take one “vacation” day. Job searching took up about two hours out of every day, and interviews generally took between one and three, depending on how much time I had to spend getting there. It felt like a light search, but others tell me that it was actually pretty aggressive.
By the numbers, this comes out to:
Twenty-six job applications
Nine interviews at four companies
Two interviews canceled due to layoffs
One trans-continental flight
And, the payoff:
Two job offers.
One was about what you would expect from a post-layoff offer – a solid company full of nice people, about the same money and a much more troublesome commute – but I lucked out on the other. It’s going to take me out of the Bay Area, away from most of my friends and most of the things I know and love, but for my career, it’s a big enough step up that I don’t think I could have very well refused it.
From my very limited tour of the job market, it feels like there is work out there, and it’s not only possible to find a decent position, but it’s even possible to make the best of a layoff and come out somewhat ahead. Times are still hard, and it takes a lot of ground-pounding to find that work, but it’s out there.
*head desk* I knew I should’ve checked here before replying to the e-mail :P
But dang. I can now see why it was turning out to be expensive. Glad to hear you’ll at least be somewhere solid with nice people.
It just sucks you have to move :(
Oops… guess I hadn’t posted in Elves.
ANYWAY! Hey Adrian. :D It was awesome meeting you at Metro. There’s my FB and e-mail if you’d like to keep in touch. Alternatively, AIM is AvadaCadavre.
Ahh, but the job is the reason you’ve moved to the Tampa area? Not the worst place to be at the moment, though the more paranoid people get about the oil spill, the worse the Gulf economy seems to become. I can at least speak for Sarasota, where I’m living; the job market is tough around here. Snowbirds are trying to sell their vacation homes and no one’s buying, unemployment is somewhat alarming, and I personally feel very lucky to even have a job. When I moved down here last year, it took me a solid three months of aggressive job-hunting before I secured a position, and it’s still not where I’d like to be. Definitely can’t be picky in this economy, though…
IN SHORT… :D I’m glad that you have decent work!