Job search chronicles, Days 4-5

Day 4

I decided that I needed to unpack and try to straighten up my house, which looked like a hurricane hit it. I spent all morning unpacking, cleaning up my room, doing laundry and cleaning dishes. But in the afternoon, I had, what could only be described as a little anxiety attack because I hadn't done anything with the job search that day. It was really strange....I started to feel really uneasy and my heart started beating really fast. But then I talked myself down and it passed.

I am paying attetion to my procrastination practices and coping mechanisms. I will be honest, when I was a kid, I was really shy, starting from about 3rd or 4th grade and I still have some closet introvert tendencies. A lot of people would probably be very surprised to hear this, especially those who have met me in the past 10 years because I make a conscious effort to not be so. And, it is easier to be more extroverted and outgoing as I have become more and more confident in myself and my accomplishments. But a situation like a job search can really tap into these latent tendencies if you let them. So I need to make sure that I do a certain amount of job search stuff every day and not get distracted by the other (non-money making) things that I get distracted by.

When I was still working, I committed to run in a corporate sponsored 5k run so I spent the afternoon trying to update my Shuffle so I could take it with me on the run. But it had been cloudy all day and started to rain. I could not find any rain day information anywhere and since partial thunderstorms were forecasted for the rest of the evening, I decided to not go. Of course, after I changed clothes and made other plans, it had dried up completely. :-(

Day 5

I was Job Search Johnson! I spent just about all day looking at job listings, sending emails, looking in LinkedIn etc... I applied to 3 jobs and talked to a friend I know at one of the them. He said that he will talk to HR about me and put in the good word for me.

When looking through the LinkedIn network of the recruiter I met this week, I saw the information for a guy who works for a company that I had no idea had an office here. While looking at the company's website, I saw that there were a couple jobs there that I might be qualified for. I typed up an introduction email and asked the recruiter to forward it to him. I also applied for one of the jobs. Hopefully, I can catch up with the man this upcoming week for an informational inteview. I also discovered that a man, who I was familiar with from my previous company, now works as a VP at one of the companies I am looking at for a new job. We actually have 7 contacts in common on LinkedIn but I am trying to figure out who is the best person to forward an introduction to him. Some folks who I think might have a closer connection to him, I don't have such a close connection to so I will have to work on this. One of our common connections is a former boss of mine and I already have some emails out to her so based on her response, I might ask her to forward an introduction.

Then, one of my old co-workers called me to meet with some other folks in the company for drinks. So I went! The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed some drinks, wings and blue cheese chips on the patio, while I got to hear about all the changes that have gone on in the past 2 weeks since I have been gone. I am still thinking that I am probably better off to be in the position I am in (except for the regular paycheck.) because there is no guarantee what will happen in the next few months. There may be more cuts, the severance packages might not be as nice... who knows....