Scripture for this week found while reading Chronicles for Tree to Tree on Wednesday.

For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever

2 Chron 5:13 and 7:3

Prayer and study:

Read 1 and 2 Chronicles and journaled some about what I was reading. Prayed for my friends who have concerns and needs. This is good since it takes my focus off of me, but I hurt for my friends with these struggles.

Outplacement agency:

This week I:

• Did the Net Search for Job Search elearning and webinar.
• Did the Networking elearning and webinar. The point being to have informational meetings/discussions with people instead of just desperately asking everyone for a job. This reminds me of how DH got his last job – visiting the company just to talk about audio/visual options for our church and suddenly the guy he’s talking to redirects the conversation and brings in the owner and they ended by asking DH to provide a proposal for a position they were trying to fill.
• Met with my career coach, she had a lot of great suggestions for next steps.
• Ordered business cards – can order card stock to print my own, can have Staples print them (200 for $29.95) or can get 250 from Vistaprint.com for as cheap as $5.45 (if I can wait 21 days). I went with Vista Print this time.
• Reviewed the formatted resume from the outplacement agency and compared it to the one I adjusted based on the Resume Development webinar. I like mine better. Formatted it for txt version for those places where I need to copy/paste it in. I am sending the pdf to most people in email.
• Continued to edit the resume to remove duties and add accomplishments and results.

Job Search:

I bought a suit in case I have to interview. None of my old suits fit, so I’ll be giving them to Goodwill soon. I found an article on WSJ about the power look coming back. I love this line. “But people’s sense of job entitlement has evaporated as unemployment figures rise.”

I loaded my resume onto the World Vision site. The agent found several jobs that fit my resume, but most want more experience than I have. All are in WA state or Washington, DC. We both need a much stronger sign if it’s time for us to move. We’d be convinced if someone walked up to us and offered to buy our house with the furnishings in it. (No, we haven’t listed the house for sale.)

Did a web course on using Social Media for your job search. This was offered by VisualCV and was a great webinar. It is available here for anyone interested. Here is mine, in progress.

I updated my twitter page to have a custom background. DH helped a lot with that. Now I know how to do it again if I want to.

I created an account at JibberJobber.com where I can track my contacts, connections, companies, job postings, etc. It has a place to put multiple 30-second commercials. Doing it again helped me make more progress on identifying my strengths and accomplishments from my career so far.

Work:

Daily meetings with my replacement to review the areas and gather the data she needed, or review the spreadsheet where I had gathered it. Redirecting most traffic to her and reminding people I am leaving. I did the monthly data gathering and then provided it for my replacement so she can create the final presentation.

Physical:

Other than a horrendous food day on Sunday, I have done well with what I eat. Exercise hasn’t happened as I would like. I was still tired for a few days after the Sunrise service and weekend spent with all 3 nephews. I did walk up/down the stairs several times as I did more cleaning in Connor’s room and handled 3 loads of laundry.

Other:

I applied for life insurance since I’ll stop having that through my employer. Trying to think of anything else like this that I should get started on.

I found another linkable item on Career Adventure. This post is about telecommuting and how to tell if you are the right type to do it. This one rings so true. I have worked from my home for a large technology firm for about four years. It works very well for me, as I am self-directed and fairly disciplined in my work routine. Most of the time, I have enough deadlines and conference calls that even if I wanted to slack I can’t. I have done my share of laundry and getting the dishes cleaned, but the hours tend to be a little longer and there is more flexibility if necessary. I don’t have to drive home and set up the laptop to be ready for any after-hours work, it’s already set up and ready to go.

The department I worked with was always remote, so even if I drove to the local site I wouldn’t be with any of the people I actually interact with. That means I had to learn how to lead and manage remotely as a way of life. There are times it has been convenient to have those one-on-one calls with my employees without worrying about the cleaning crew wanting to vacuum or someone else poking their head in the door.

I have watched almost the complete cycle with my company. When I first began there was a resistance to working from home even at night or one day a week. Then real estate concerns got involved, and there was a push to move more employees to work from home. I think it was successful for the most part. Granted, some people don’t work well in the distracting environment of their home, and some tasks are just too collaborative to do with a remote team. But most of us were happy to lose the commute and traffic, and we have thrived working in our home.

We have learned to build and maintain relationships through phone calls, small talk at the beginning of conference calls, instant messaging, and emails. We certainly know who the workers are, the reliable ones we can go to for information or help. We all agree that it is sometimes lonely and maybe we miss something by not being face to face with someone from our company, even if they aren’t in our area. I don’t think that has affected productivity or morale, though. The benefits still outweigh the concerns.

Yet, I see strong signs that the company is shifting to get people back on centralized worksites, with cubicle farms and war-rooms, even relocations but without the financial assistance to move. It will be interesting to see how this works after so many of us have experienced the flexibility of working from home.