As of last Monday, June 21st, I started my new contract assignment at Ericcsons through the consulting agency Taos Mountain. My title at Ericcsons is Unix System Administrator and I provide support to many labs and many servers. My title at Taos is a non-descriptive one: Technical Consultant.
Employment background:
My last day of working was at the beginning of October, 2007. I had to take a family leave of absence and when I tried to enter the work force in December, 2008, well, we all know the state of the economy at that time. Taos did try to find something for me but they officially laid me off in March, 2009. Some of you know that Taos hired me back a couple of months ago to do a very short part-time gig working weekends at Gazillion. But then that assignment ended last month and I was again in search of a full-time job. So really it has been 2 years and 8 months since I have had meaningful employment.
My Promatch/Connect/EDD/Nova Journey:
Initially I had some good leads for jobs...even being flown down to LA as a final candidate for a very important Sporting Company! But eventually I realized that I needed my job search to be jump started so in September, 2009, I joined Connect and signed up for Promatch(1). While I waited to join Promatch, I took some of the Connect classes and became active in my pre-promatch success team. My success team became so successful that most everyone had a job by the time I was accepted to join Promatch in February. I was kind of bummed out that I was not employed yet, but I immediately was invited to join another success team that has proven to be a fantastic asset for me! This success team has been extremely active too with many of the members have gotten jobs with some starting even before our first meeting!
Because of my taking leave, I have not been able to collect one dime of unemployment so I did not have much contact with EDD. I heard though from a fellow promatcher that there were funds for getting Nova to pay for certification education for those who did not collect unemployment. I was surprised to hear this and even more surprised when I found out that I was eligible for a Linux System Administration Certificate Program. I have already taken one class and am taking two night classes this summer and will finish up and get my certificate early next year.
How I got this job:
I originally attended a Taos recruitment event that connected me once again with many people at Taos that I had relationships with. Networking with Linkedin, email, and over the phone are great, but nothing beats networking face-to-face. Once I made the rounds, people recognized that I was again a valuable asset to the company. Many recruiters said they would go the extra mile to get me placed. We have all heard things like this with usually no follow-through, but in this case I visited their office again and attended another event that they invited me to. When the opportunity at Ericcsons came available, I was one of the three candidates that Ericcsons and Taos considered. They contacted me Wednesday, June 16, in the afternoon and I had a technical interview that evening. To tell you the truth, I did not do very well with the technical interview, but I found out in the conversation that they were leaning towards someone with a proven track record of professionalism. I did well with that part of the interview with my PSRs, but I did not have my hopes up since they had not interviewed the other candidates.
Late Friday, June 18, Taos called me and said that Ericcsons wanted me to start work Monday morning June 21st. To say I was surprised would be an understatement! But to throw cold water on my happiness, Taos then filled me in that I was entering a very “hot” situation as I was replacing someone that although was extremely technical but did not work out . My professionalism would be tested immediately and hard and of course my learning curve would be tough and evident to everyone! So would I last even a day? Well, I survived my first week and I think things are going well enough that I feel comfortable in having my success story read now. I am not out of the woods yet as it is a one-month probation period, but I hope the worst is behind me. My boss at Ericcsons met with me on Friday and he was impressed with me so far. It boggles my mind how I did well on some technical interviews and got turned down, yet this time I really flopped but I got the job! Go figure!
May your unemployment journey not be as long as mine, but here is to the happy ending you will have if you don't forget that life is about people and getting a job is about networking and they are both intertwined!
Thank You,
Warren Spalding's
Promatch graduation class 2010
(1) ProMatch is an interactive career resource center for professionals who are seeking work in Silicon Valley and the greater San Francisco Bay Area.
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