Category: Episodes

Job Search Week Two

I finished my 2nd full week of my unplanned sabbatical. It was a pretty good week. I had two phone interviews. One of them lead to the next step which was pre-employment testing. The other lead to an in person interview on Friday.

I think I did OK on the test (the toughest part was the math, with me trying to remember how to do long division). I’ll know the results next week. If I pass the test, they will schedule an inperson interview.

The interview on Friday went well. I have a 2nd interview with the company, this time with the hiring manager coming up this week.

The only other irons I have in the fire (as they say) is a company requesting a phone interview. I’ve applied for another company and one of my contacts (thank you Bruce) knows the CTO and they are reaching out to them to have them review my resume.

It was a good week. Thanks to everyone for the good thoughts and kind words. No Retreat, No Surrender, Better Days are ahead.

No Degree? No Open Door!

As I continue to look for a new work home, I run into the obstacle of not having a degree quite often. There are many things I would redo if I could. Tell the 20-year-old Jesse to stay in school, even though I was working 40 plus hours a week while going to school. Tell the 30-year-old Jesse that even though you will work 14 years at BancTec and no one cared there if you had a degree or not, to go finish school because one day you will need that paper. I’m now 60, with 30 years of Customer Service, Contact Center, Customer advocate experience but with no degree, some people won’t even talk to me.

There are certain jobs where I understand why a Degree is important. No one wants an Accountant with no degree. No one wants a nurse or a doctor, an engineer or an architect with out a degree. But if you need someone to lead a contact center or to work with a team to keep client’s happy, doesn’t experience mean more than something I did 30 years ago?

The search for a new job is dark an full of terrors. I know that I’m not the perfect person for every job but can you at least talk to me via the phone before saying no?

Thus ended today’s #jobsearch2020 rant.