I have several irons in the fire right now. I have the job search, which currently consists of more research and development, and building my professional network than actual “searching”. Oh sure, I hit the job boards pretty much every day, including weekends, but I’m also sobered by the fact that less than 5% of jobs are filled by hitting the submit button on a job board. I fact, I’ve submitted my resume to over 100 positions in the last two weeks and I’ve barely gotten a nibble from anyone, from the job boards.
Where have I gotten some traction? From my network. Having done IT work for the last 15+ years, I have a lot of professional recruiters in my network. So I ping them on a weekly basis to see what’s happening out there and a couple of them have actually been pretty responsive. I’m supposed to doing a phone interview this week with a company in Dallas, and I have a recruiter sit-down on Wednesday to go over a few positions that they have available. So I may come away with something from these connections pretty soon.
That said, however; even if I don’t come away with anything from my recruiter contacts, I know I’ll find something in my network. One of the things I am doing is company research. I find a company I’m interested in working for, find a contact within that company on LinkedIn.Com, see if that contact is connected to anyone I know, and ask them for an introduction. This method has gotten me interviews in the past, so I know it works.
Another agenda item is my resume. I basically have two versions of my resume: The technical version and the executive version. The technical version, as you can probably guess, outlines my technical background and experience. The executive version cover more of may managerial experience. So I’m working with Resume Psychology expert, Dirk Spencer, to see what changes might make my resume a more effective presentation tool.
Dirk is a recruiter, but he’s also a speaker and trainer who helps people format their resumes in such a way that they get results. It’s a funny thing, you can have a wealth of experience, tons of education, and actually may be the perfect guy for a particular job, but if your resume doesn’t rise to the top of the stack, you’ll never get the interview. One of the things I like, that Dirk tries to get across, is that the resume IS the interview.
Lastly this week, I’m dedicating several hours to preparing for my ITIL certification test next week. My objective is to get through the training materials 3 times before I sit for the test. Not a small feat, by any means, in fact, I have set aside 36 hours over the next two weeks to prepare, not counting the time I’ve already put into it. I also have to pass the test next Friday because it’s a task item on my Outlook schedule. 
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