Tuesday, March 27, 2007

The Search Is On

I spent a couple of hours yesterday at the job center that my ex-employer set up to assist its down-sized employees in finding new jobs. It's nice to see such a strong effort being made to place people as quickly as possible but, in another sense, it's also a little depressing to hear the stories being told about the already infamous morning on which we were all sent packing. The center is filled with counselors, computers and telephones and it was all fairly chaotic yesterday since it was the first day that the center was open for business. I'm going to head that way later this morning to complete some of the testing they suggest and to do some work on preparing a résumé that will somehow properly represent the last 29 years on a single page.

I've been told that it's important that we keep to a regular schedule during this transition period, that sleeping until noon and then staying up half the night is not a good idea, and I'm finding that easy to do. My eyes pop open at 5:20 every morning just like they have every workday for the past five years. Some habits are hard to break.

5 comments:

  1. Sam, best of luck on the job search. Having gone through it a couple times myself, I know there can be a lot of wonderful opportunities and disappointments. Fortunately, you have a great group of folks here when you want them.

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  2. Oh dear, I didn't know. Best of luck!

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  3. Thanks for the kind words, ladies. I spent about three hours there today on a class on resume preparation and my first draft of one for myself. It's just so glum there that it's painful to be in the building. Maybe that's just because I'm not in my "comfort zone" anymore but it is very noticeable to me.

    I'll try to finish up a resume this afternoon so that I can meet directly with one of the counselors tomorrow...one little step at a time, looks like.

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  4. Ugh. I feel for you; I hate the whole resume, cover letter, job search thing. But you're going about the right way and staying positive and that's key.

    Good luck!

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  5. :) I got some "constructive" criticism from one of the counselors this morning, Anne, about my resume. Let's just say that I'm starting over...so much for the class.

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