Obsolesence

doesn't occur over night.  It creeps up on you, like moss covering the bones that the weevils and maggots have cleaned.  In geologic time, it might seem "quick," but it's a rolling wave and unless you want to be taken under, you need to ride it.  (I'll have to get with Tom to get some stronger surfing metaphors, I only surf the web.)

It's not "getting old" which makes us obsolete, it's being silo-ed, corralled away from the newest tools and trends.  For example, access to Microsoft Excel's "Power" suite of BI tools, like PowerQuery, PowerPivot, and PowerMaps for those of us relegated to the Excel world.  Then there's the fact of the influence and availability of
open source coding solutions like R or Python.  But even training up on these tools - if we don't use them, then we "lose" them.  I can't count how many people I know went for CCNA or CCNE certifications and then never, ever after touched a Cisco box.  Now those are just letters trailing after their names and if they get into an interview someone will ask.  Yes, no matter how glancing your knowledge of a topic, if you claim it, you will be asked to answer even a trivial question.  And you won't know the answer.  Knowledge is nothing more than repetition in my book.  Use it or lose it is the mantra.

So what is the point of certification?  Honestly, my own foray into R certifications and my exposure to the Power tools is why I bring up those points.  Exposure & certs only make you look like you're wall-papering your dining room.  They don't matter.  You have to be able to demonstrate even a small amount of working knowledge.  And this type of working knowledge means you have to work in it.  Now, if your certs are years old, no one's gonna test you on it, but then the relevance will be questionable.  *shrug*  I would think of it more as an award, rather than a skillset at that point.  

However, technologies are changing so rapidly that we do need to gain access to a working knowledge of some of these tools - which means, to me, an integration into daily life.  So, I'm going with Python at the moment and am focusing on that for a scripting language as well as data analysis.  Here in Seattle, it seems to be more a Python kinda town.  I plan on using the Microsoft suite of power tools for the visualizations though.  I did pull down a trial copy of Tableau, but their trials are only 45-90 days.

Other technologies you could gain access to:  Amazon Web Services has a one year introductory account you could set up.  This would give you training and access to their Cloud Services.  They also have training sessions.  You can install Hortonworks Hadoop onto your home machine.  I have a million-and-one resources I could list here in this blog entry.  That's actually been part of my problem - too many options.

Time to focus down now though... focus.. laser like attention... LOL

The Painted Pony Goes Up and Down

The Circle Game - I've begun to notice them in my weeks.  Mondays, nothing.  No emails from recruiters, no calls, and I can't really remember the last time I had a scheduled interview on Monday.

All the activity begins on Tuesdays.  That's when the emails from the various head hunters (my friends not in the IT / telecomm industry do not experience this), the phone calls, the follow ups to begin scheduling interviews or phone screens.  Everything seems to happen Tuesday - Thursday.  Yes, I had a pop-up phone screen this morning, from which I've got an interview with a recruiter on Tuesday. (This time I did ask if the recruiter had a signed contract with the company they were representing for that specific job.  They said yes.  I'm taking the interview.)

Scheduling my interviews 

or

a philosophy in displacement

One of the things I try to do is work my interview schedules for the following week.  I give the most active companies a two day choice, usually a Tu/Th option.  When I have a 2nd company call in, I give them a Wed/Fri.  If a third comes in and I haven't heard from the first served recruiters, I send emails to the effect that my availability has changed.  I give them either morning blocks or afternoon blocks and plan to have a two hour window in between.  Bottom line, when HR / recruiters / schedulers don't get back to you, you need to plan on balancing your schedule with an eye to commute times between locations.  About all you can do is send the email update to the various balls still in the air and let them know that there are fewer and fewer time slots available.

This practice is also good because it keeps you in the habit of reaching out to potential employers for follow-ups.  Anxiety decreases as habit increases.


What I should have done before I got started with all these job submissions... spent time on the site Payscale.

Payscale is my new current favorite for understanding how job titles, job descriptions, and pay relate to rank.  For example, by looking up the following titles, it is clearly evident that one begins a career as an analyst, moves on to a developer role, and then into architecture.  Uhm... I've done a lot of applying for the analyst roles.  hmmmmmmm..... Okay, so I'm an idiot.  No wonder I didn't get a call.

$66k avg salary  BusinessIntelligence (BI) Analyst

$46,061 - $100,577           Business intelligence (BI) analysts help guide and improve the way that businesses' management staff foster collaboration within and between departments. Minimum educational requirements generally include a bachelor's degree in business administration or computer engineering. Additionally, individuals should have at least 1-2 years experience in a supervisory or administrative role within an organization.

$77,286 average salary   Business Intelligence (BI) Developer

$52,288 - $114,228           Business intelligence developers must be data experts, as they work primarily with databases and different types of software. Often abbreviated as BI developer, this job involves developing and fine tuning IT solutions. That can include anything from coding to testing to debugging to designing to implementing newly developed tools. A BI developer spends a lot of time researching and planning solutions for existing problems within the company. BI developers also are responsible for building OLAP, or online analytical processing. They also work with databases, both relational and multidimensional. BI developers are often responsible for managing others in the IT department or in the company.

104,531Kavg salary         Business Intelligence (BI) Architect

$76,005 - $150,217           Business intelligence (BI) architects are in charge of analyzing and implementing business intelligence for their organization. They are responsible for determining platforms and correct functioning for the central data warehouse. They process large amounts of information to draw conclusions based on their intelligence findings, interact with a variety of business professionals, and communicate critical project requirements within their organization. These architects also manage developers, directing their efforts to reach organizational goals in a timely manner. They utilize a personal computer with analytical tools to calculate business data and interpret results. They generally report their progress to the business intelligence director in their organization.

So now, I can say, that if I'd known better I would work on the following in the following order:

1. Get a good LinkedIn picture - one without family or friends or musical instruments.
2. Update the LinkedIn profile & your resume.  Plan on updating these frequently.  
3. Get some good cover letter templates going.
4. Set up a professional Twitter feed.  Make sure your email address is something other than your SexyLion99@hotmail.  Kay?  Use adult names.
5. Get your business cards made.  
6. Ask for references to be added to your LinkedIn profile.  
7. Add contacts to LinkedIn.
8. Begin to daydream
9. Investigate modern job titles and average salaries from Payscale.
10. Begin investigating companies.  When you're investigating a company in LinkedIn, your contacts will show up as shared connections.  You will have much, Much, MUCH better luck reaching through your connections to get your resume forwarded to their HR folks.  Believe me when I say this though, it's easier said than done.  That said, here's a good article to help develop your "ask" and to give you the confidence to ask.

11. Sign up for a series of Meetups & conventions in your area of interest.  You really need to plan on getting out there.  No, you don't have to do it all the time.  I cancel those weeks where I've been heavily interviewing.  It's been a while since I've been out there.  I stopped going after one particularly horrific rooftop networking event.  I began having flashbacks to the cocktail parties of my Southern Ivy League University frat house experience.  ugh.  I can do tech talks for a while, but even that gets tiresome for all the beer and pizza.  Done with that.  There's so much out there, it's been overwhelming.  I'm refocusing on just a few events now.
12. Start adding your profile to other sites like Indeed.  I've given a list of a few other locations as well.  

And a few articles about social media and hiring as an FYI that I tracked down after reading the Jobvite 2015 Recruiter Survey and the sources recruiters use to find candidates.

At Monster, we’ve prioritized social hiring through Twitter,
How Recruiters Creepily Troll Social Media for Job Candidates (Infographic)
Building an effective social network

Hangin' on a lazy Wednesday

Had a four hour interview yesterday, and as much as I tried to not keep today open, two interviews today - a phone screen and a f2f.  The f2f is the response to an inquiry from a company < 50 employees after their recruiter saw my resume on Angel whatever... 

Anyways, the interview is in the afternoon - thank gawd, 'cause not only did I have a bad night's sleep, but those multi-hour interviews just suck you dry.  Reminds me of my b2b conference call days.  Anyways, it was lovely actually being able to wake up late this morning, drink coffee in bed before a leisurely shower.  Chat with my hubbie, then begin prep for the phone screen.

Interestingly enough, one of the things about the phone screen - the recruiter mentioned that "long time employees" salaries are "inflated."  uhm... yeah, their highest offering was the lowest I am willing to look at, but I have nothing to lose with pursuing it.  

Anyways, here's a picture of the lovely late September afternoon at the coffee shop

.

Wildcards (or How I've Taken Up Writing Essays For No Profit and Long Shot Chances)

I've had no interviews this week, but do have one four hour interview scheduled for next week.  Having come out of a "glom" of screenings and interviews, I've been using this time to work on my job submissions and to focus on enjoying this time off...  Well, that and work on my coursera class on Practical Machine Learning. 

One of the things I started doing this week though is applying to some companies I might not shouldn't.  But here's the thing, that seven hour interview (which dropped down to only five) came about because I saw a job I had some of the qualifications for, but only a few, but the company was cool.  So, I figured, "Why the hell not?"  Shit.  I got called in so quick it made my head spin.

We all know I am not a square peg.  In fact, my cubicle doth overfloweth theth cubicle gridth. 

So, why am I applying to square peg jobs?  Be that as it may, this week I started having fun with some of my submissions.  (This is what comes of one positive response to my bad behavior.)  So, I've found some interesting places to submit and research different organizations.  I'm going all out with my cover letters.  I have my "blurbs" done, but the introductions are fully personalized and I continue to expand upon my blurts.

So, onto this list of "Out There" job boards (besides the normal:  Indeed, LinkedIn, Dice, Monster, TelecomCareers, and TheLadders)

AngelList - they have the catch phrase:  "A new way to find a job at a great startup"  You can make a profile with your resume.  Your profile won't show "completed" unless / until you have three references submitted by others to that site / through that site.  Well, I've done mine through LinkedIn, so maybe I'll ask future ones for AngelList (probably not, but whatevahhh....).  Also, your profile won't show complete without your graduation dates.  I've already written to them about that little age revealing piece of information.  That said, I have received one (make that) two inquiries from a founder from my profile posted here.  Unfortunately, it was in New York, so not only did I have to respond that it wouldn't work, I had to go figure out how to modify my profile even further so I wouldn't encourage requests outside of the Seattle area.

PowerToFly - Remote work (i.e., telecommuting), however this is focused on women.  So the only profiles I've seen in here are those with breasts attached.  That said, I have not received any inquiries from this site.  There are not that many jobs either.


Pymetrics - is only in beta.  The initial setup is 12 "games" which are supposed to create a profile of your cognitive, emotional, and social skills which would then be used to "match" you up with companies or a career.  However, they don't have any engineering work outside of Finance Reserch, Product Development, or Marketing.  The company list is small, but the filters are "interesting" in that you can filter on company size as "type" (i.e., privately held, public, non profit).  They have a total of 20 games you can use.  I got tired after the first 12, and because the list of matching "careers" was so limited, I was somewhat disappointed.  That said, I could review my "results" against those other careers which were available.

AnalyticTalent - I only have my resume loaded up here.  I continue to receive an email saying there's a match between myself and Amazon.  I haven't found a way to modify the profile so I could refine my preferences.  It does have a View counter, fwiw, and fwetm (for whatever that means).  Interestingly, the job match hyperlinks to a NY Times classified job description, so maybe they're scraping far and wide.

LinkedIn Connection uhm... insert s(word) here...

So, I am looking at Company JJ these days and trying to work up the courage to ask someone in my network to drop my resume into the queue. I'd unsuccessfully applied there before last spring.  Now, there are even more jobs.  However, last go around I only got one phone screen (positive result, but the hiring manager wasn't interested) out of four applications.  Having someone submit your resume really helps.  I'm paying for LinkedIn Prime (again) to be able to do this kind of search, so I put in my search for connections to people currently working at Company JJ. 

The results come back with 666 (Yes.  Truly.  No joke)  people working at Company JJ for which I have a 2nd connection.  For those who might not know what a "2nd connection" is, that's is someone I'm connected to through a direct friend connection (1st level) I have on my LinkedIn account.  666 2nd connections represents over 25 pages of individuals I'd have to individually click on to see if I recognize a contact I'd feel comfortable enough to ask to submit my resume, or bring it to the attention of someone. 

Wow.  I'm used to 1 or 2, maybe 8 or 10, but it's like everyone I know has a connection to Company JJ... or really?  Here's what happened to my LinkedIn account and how I became a LinkedIn Slut.

My LinkedIn connections grew "organically" for years, so I had about 150-160 people I knew.  I never reached out to people, except to maybe three or four over the years - just to reconnect with friends I missed b/c they left The tt because of lay-off or burnout.  When it was time for me to move on from the tt, I did what I saw others do, and began to put out connection requests to people I knew.  Cool.  That's normal. 

Turns out I really only worked with the same people over a lot of years.  My numbers were in the mid-300s, but I'm shy.  I hesitated to connect with the directors, veeps, etc. of my past, because, well... I'm shy that way.  It's all part of that "I hate job hunting" parcel I have to get over.  Whatever...

But then I'm out and about and making connections through various networking events, conventions, and meetups.  Then there are the recruiters.  Then there's the magical thinking of "the more people in your network, the more 'productive' you look" shit you'll find in the readings online.  And lest we forget, LinkedIn's "magical" 500+ tag on your profile will make you look thinner as well. 

Well, I'm here to say that now I do believe I'll be unconnecting from some of these connections.  Because, really, I can never go ask these people for a favor.  Also, as I'm approaching the 500 mark, I find I don't really want to go over that number.  I don't want to be a 500+ member.  Why?

Why is having a bunch of strangers look at the posts you forward to the list about whatever you post to your LinkedIn account worth having?  I can't say that any of my LinkedIn connections have gotten my resume forwarded, or set me up.  I don't see these people as having much to contribute beyond me hitting that "500+" mark. 

Now, that is not to say that I'll be getting rid of all recruiters.  I've found some of them really do have very good information they post to my LinkedIn stream - including jobs.  But I look at wading through these 25 pages of 2nd connections and I'm only up to page 12 when I decide to do this blog entry - because, well, it's more interesting and less anxiety raising.  Because, yes, out of the first 120 or so 2nd connections, I count 13 of these Second Connections with First Connections I'd even consider pinging to drop my resume.  This is gonna take all day.

Back to LinkedIn...

Collect this information about your work & a bit about working with recruiters, head hunters, and "What I Learned In School Today"

• Budgetary Responsibility - We've worked with $50M projects and more.  This value is "unbelievable" out here in the wilds.  I've modified my resumes, cover letters, etc. to > $10M
• The number of lines / characters you've coded / are responsible for
• The amount of data stored in your database.
• Ingestion rates & file quantities
• # of nodes of responsibility
• # of people who report to you, team size
• Frequency of repetitive tasks (i.e., how often you had to deliver a deliverable & how many of what type) 

In one blog, I saw this idea summarized as:

1. Show How Many
2. Show How Often
3. Show How Much

Whatever can be quantified, quantify it and track it over time.  We get sloppy about doing that without having to update our resume all the time.

Add to the list and I'll update this blog post.

Other items to consider:

• Limit your work experience to no more than 15 years on the official resume
• Use the phrase, 10+ years for extensive work experience
• Staying with a single company for a long period of time is apparently being considered as "stagnation" these days, so plan on creating a "new job" for each time your company was acquired. 
• Show the last grade level you exited a job with, not what you went into that position with.

*************************************************************************************************************************************
Also, I'm continued to be informed that people from you know where with > 25 years are still being denied the you know what benefits.  Check your retirement medical status.

*************************************************************************************************************************************

That said, I had another epiphany today after receiving another polite "No thank you."  If I don't get a job, I can just "sell it" on Etsy.  Yeah, I'm ready to begin thinking about opening an Etsy store.  What have I got to lose?  Add to that, maybe I'll finish writing that novel (those novels?) I have in my drawer.  I'm definitely going out to lunch with friends today.

The "No thank you" came from a consulting firm looking to use me as a contractor (not consultant).  A head hunting firm (HHF) sent them my resume.  The HHF contact did make me aware that there were contractual discussions going on and they weren't going well.  I sniffed "doom" then.



What I've subsequently learned - and which made me pull my resume down from Indeed and Cybercoders (I'd already removed it from Monster after the Insurance Salesman emails) - was that if a recruiting firm has a contract with a company, you can't independently go submit for another job with said company without the possibility that the HHF would get involved (i.e., go for their fee).  Some of these fees can be in the tens of thousands of dollars.

I cannot help but feel this "discussion between the HHF and the Co. impacted my decision.

Do NOT sign any contract nothing that comes through your email.  Yes, I have had people send me various forms of a contract, "letters of representation," etc.  It was very confusing at first.  I receive an email or three a day from various individuals wanting to know:

Hello Andrea,
Hope you are doing well!
We have an opportunity for Sr. Performance Tester with one of our clients in Bellevue, WA
Please see the job details below and let me know if you would be interested in this role. 
If interested, please send me a copy of your resume, your contact details, your availability and a good time to connect with you.

Many of these jobs can be found through Indeed, LinkedIn, or even the company website.  Go that route first.  The last thing you want to do is get tied up between a "third party recruiter" and a company you're truly interested in, especially as many companies specifically do not have contracts with "third party recruiters."

Other firms have contracts with companies like Microsoft, Expedia for temporary, contracted work.  They will always ask you how much you want for your hourly rate.  I'll get into that in another blog post, but for the context of this one - this company will do the background search, the reference checks, the initial phone screen and a face-to-face before they send you to the client.

These contracting companies are not like the pseudo-head-hunting firms which seem to be crawling over my body like maggots on a corpse.  Other friends of mine, in other industries, have maybe received one contact in eight months and she was able to find the job online.

The HHF will ask you if you've interviewed with a company before.  Make sure you're clear if you have because you do not want to jeopardize anything you might have in the hopper.  If you do have previous contact with the company, the HHF will drop you like you have an STD.

I'm too embarrassed

to ask for recommendations / forward my resume to companies - except on rare occasions.  I continue to futz it up.  I think I've only successfully done it twice.  One forward got me a number of job interviews, the other one got me a great informational interview.  It's almost worse than asking people to link with on LinkedIn or for a recommendation.  Those are the Top 3  worst parts of the painful process of job hunting.

Part of the NOT painful process of job hunting - going out to lunch at Marination Ma Kai on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon in Seattle and taking the obligatory skyline shot.

That said, I just finished writing a two page essay / cover letter for a  "dream job" entry for a company I'm interested in.  I've applied before, got turned down.  This time, I'm applying for the position of :

Have a better idea?

These job listings are incomplete. If you don’t see your specialty listed here, but you have years of professional experience, are really talented at what you do, and possess a skillset that would help us create better products and experiences for our customers, apply on the form below. We are happy to be convinced that we need a molecular biologist or a mathematician or an ironworker, but the onus is on you to do so.

Monster.com

I've had three offers to interview for the position of

wait a sec

get this

INSURANCE SALESPERSON

with three different companies all in the course of an hour.  Turn Visibility for my resume OFF on that website.  Do not go to Monster.Com unless you really want to sell insurance.

************* In other news ******************

I got the most lovely "Nope" from one of my long-shot interviews.  I had fun meeting the people, the HR person called me a "breath of fresh air."  Which, yeah, I think maybe I was not so much a "breath of fresh air" as much as a "higher pitch of a voice," but she then went on to compliment me on my directness.  I swami, my head just got big.

They were nice folks and I loved the technical interviews because - well, basically - asking me to make choices about which way to move without budgetary impact knowledge didn't make sense to me.  Then there was the question of questioning which project someone else spent the majority of their time working.  My response, "What's the problem?  Can you tell me what the problem is?"  Yes, I loved that there were several dumbfounding moments I was very satisfied in making.  It felt good to "be back."  LOL

I knew I was a long-shot and the feedback and interview experience was incredibly valuable.  I was basically asked to keep an eye out for other positions in this small company.  Which, sure, would be great, but if this job was a long shot, uhm... well, another email subscription won't hurt.

Anyways, I ran across this interesting article on what to say if you do get a job offer.  This looks like another blog I'll be following.  Nick Corcodilos has a tag "How to say it" which will be very helpful in those conditions like salary negotiations, or job offers, where we have no experience with "the script."

The Job-Offer Sucker Punch

How to Say It

“I’m impressed with your company, and I’m eager to come to work with you. However, I cannot accept this offer without knowing all the terms of employment, including the benefits. I could no more sign an employment agreement without knowing all the terms than your company could sign a business contract without knowing what it was committing to. I’m sure you understand. Could you please provide me with your employee manual, benefits package, and any other documents that would bind me after I start the job? Once I have these, I will promptly respond. I look forward to accepting your offer, and to making a significant contribution to your business. I hope I can count on your help so we can all get to work.”  

You will never get the answer just right

One of the best pieces of advice about job hunting I got was from one of my lab rat friends, Mike.  He said, "You need to have a story to explain why you left."

That is the only question I've found for which everyone, and I mean everyone asks.  After that - all bets are off.  Still, you need to have a few basic scripts.  These are the questions I've come to expect.

That will segue into "What are you looking for?" which is closely related to, "Why did you apply for this job?"  Which brings back my memories of my favorite question to ask people during an interview, "Why the fuck would you want to work here, are you nuts?!"  (I can't remember if I consistently used the f-bomb or not).  And considering I was always the "ringer" thrown into the interview process, I know no one could adequately prepare for me.  Anyways, I was always looking for the aggressive, mean types and everyone is always on their best behavior.

Then there's the salary question.  You will never get the salary question correct, so just plan on having a script and knowing that you will be weeded out at times because you don't fill in the blanks properly.  However, I consistently find that both my own career counselor plus others who help people find work advise against making it easy to give a firm number.  Here is my script - a patchwork cobble from a variety of sources.  I paste this stock answer into fields on forms, use it in the phone screen.

I'd be glad to share not only my current earnings, but my whole salary history. But I think it's a bit too early to get into salary discussions.  I don't believe the immediate salary will be an issue if the fit is right. There are several factors I consider when evaluating the "fit" of a position: the company, challenge, the culture, location & commute impacts, the amount of travel required, the career path, long-term compensation possibilities, vacation and bonuses. So, if the fit is right, I'm confident salary won't be a problem.  However, if you let me know what your range is, I can usually give a nod or no.

You will get pushed, so only when push comes to shove (and there are actually people who have lots of really good articles about how to avoid that shove through negotiating skills, I just am not the best example, so I collapse) use your current salary minus 4 or 5K and then add 10.  Make sure you know your bonus structure too, as well as the historic aspect of your bonus structure.  But that range will place you in the overall hierarchy.  Of course, with the recent changes in the bonus structure, that will look like, well, I dunno.  You're going to have to work out your own "story."

One of my biggest problems is that I've been applying to jobs for which I am too senior, both in experience and in salary.  After talking to Marianne about how I was recently "shoved" into giving a lowball number for a position I was interested & applying for because I was interested - but didn't have all the requisite skills - it was apparent that not only would I not get the job, but I was continuing to shoot myself in the foot by apply for such a position.

After the "never get it right" salary question, are the "never get it right" technical questions.  Yes, I'm continuing to run through the technical interviews, but now I am letting people know they will be disappointed if they want me to take a "40 question multiple choice."  (I've been out of college quite some time, it sounds like 'you' are looking for a recent college graduate.  I don't believe we would be a good fit.") or try to whiteboard syntax perfect code (I'm not a CSE, neither am I a statistician.  I am an engineer who has primarily worked in query language and done statistical analysis as part of the job.").  One of the most recent technical questions I was asked to describe the fields in a PowerPivot.  I've worked with two, three times.  I told 'im I'd only been 'exposed.'  Whatevahh... you give it the Good 'Ole College Try.  Besides, I'm me.  I'm used to humiliating myself.


Anyways, off to read some more job openings.  I only have one phone technical interview this week so far.  Oh, and a call back to another recruiter.

Random readings from the wilderness

Some very interesting comments about resume file names and searchability, plus other ATs / LinkedIn info.  Very much worth a read.  This is item #4.  It also makes the point that - yes - companies are tracking how many times you've applied for jobs with them.  The reading I've been doing says three rejections in phone screens or interviews and you might as well not go back.

In the interest of clarifying which job titles might be "shaking out" for a standard of "data scientist", this blog entry has some great definitions.  Data Science Central is also a good blog to be registered with if you do the kind of work I used to do.  Believe me, you will be asked on occasion who you are reading.

One of the interesting side lines I've been pursuing is performance measurements out here in the wild.  The general IT / web programming has led to the development of performance measurements & testing results

Load Impact
API metrics
VoIP call quality issues
Dynatrace
Continuous Performance in Continuous Integration
Web application performance testing
Soasta white papers on performance engineering

Five hours of interviews

It was down from seven hours.  The CTO didn't segue to the software designers then the VP.  This is never a good sign.  But I'd had five - count 'em -- F-I-V-E b2b interviews.

Everyone asks why I left telecom.

Why I left the perfect job.

The perfect job title.
the big company.

Why am I looking to work at such a small company.

What people don't seem to get is that ennui - that existential boredom - comes from lack of challenge.

I've been there.

I've seen it.

I've eaten it.

I've smelled it.

I've felt that touch before.

I have to move foreward or I'm buried while still alive.

******

The interviews are stacking up.  NEVER do more than one a day.

Send the "regret to inform you, but I'm not pursuing next steps with you" emails early

ALWAYS be the first in an interview to mention it's not a "fit."

***** Friday morning ***

new "NEVER" do again:

Never schedule face to face (f2f) interviews one day after the next.
No more than three f2f interviews a week, and only then if they're separated by a day.
Don't even bother trying to manage a phone screen, tech interview, with a f2f in one day - switching gears between companies & job descriptions really isn't that easy.

Yes, one of the horrible things yesterday is that I forgot I'd spoken to someone on a phone screen - my hiring manager, the one I met yesterday in meat space.  (*i SUCK*)

Interviewing is like a dance performance.  You're all jazzed before hand, but then afterwards..