IT as either a cost center or a profit center

Last night at the Seattle Tech Mentors meetup, the organizer Brendan brought up a really, Really, REALLY interesting point about where the IT department fits in a company structure.  You want to find out if the work group, or the IT department, is part of a cost center, or a profit center.  If it's part of the cost center - the company is going to want to keep the costs as low as possible.  Flee!  hmmmm  didn't "our" group just get reorg'd to the IT dept?  Lemme guess which center that one falls under...

Another good piece of advice I got was about how to find out about the work/life balance of a company by asking the person during an informational interview:  "Where did you go on vacation this past year?  Or how much vacation have you taken this past year?"

Then, for where to check for salaries related - not LinkedIn.  Use payscale, Indeed, and Glassdoor instead.

Everything is turning into keyword searches.  The Indeed resume is not like any I've seen before.  I'm going to redoing mine - although I was contacted for two jobs through my name coming up in an Indeed search.

If you'll notice, the Indeed Resume is entirely skills based at a glance.  I'm working on my keyword searches because my name sure as hell doesn't show up anywhere, so I need to optimize that.  My LinkedIn profile has increased from the 50th position out of 100 returns to 28.  That puts me at page two.  I still haven't figured out what the search parameters are for my "profile" to turn up.  Gah!  So, LinkedIn sucks at capturing salary ranges and has a hidden keyword criteria.

Another piece of semi-irritating / bad news.  I've gotten conflicting information about leaving the LinkedIn status as still being an AT&T employee.  I just can't do that.  My brain cannot wrap itself around negotiating that big of a gap.  I know others don't have a problem, but I can't flex / respond to reality warps like that - at all.  ugh.  So, another nail in that coffin, but what-evah-da-fuck.