Day Four - Learning and Planning

Today, I listened to the briefing to my work group. They didn’t really say much that was of interest to me. Did say it was possible for more cuts, but that they were trying to make this the only cut of the year.  It was weird being the person referred to as “those affected by the cuts”. Almost like talking in third person even though the person is in the room. I’m wondering if there might be another person from our group that hasn’t spoke up yet.

Last night I went to the library and picked up about ten books on various topics from writing resumes and cover letters to planning your job search. The one that I like best so far takes a more systemic approach to writing your resume. High Impact Resumes and Letters by Krannich and Banish has you design your resume as part of multi-step process and not the first step.

It talks about a four step Career development process:

  Step 1: Assessing
  Step 2: Exploring
  Step 3: Developing Skills (like writing resumes and networking)
  Step 4: Implementing Job Search steps

This last step then leads to the Job Search Steps and Stages

1. Identify motivated skills and abilities
2. Specify a job/career objective
3. Research individuals, organizations, communities, and jobs
4. Produce resumes and job search letters
5. Conduct informational and networking interviews
6. Manager Job interviews
7. Negotiate salary and terms of employment.

I like the idea of spending a bit more time in the first steps in order to do the ground work. Developing the career objective or deciding what I want to get out of this next phase of my career.  This is something that I think is important for me right now.  I don’t know much more than what I have shared about this approach, but this is feeling good to me.

I also started a new group called IT People with Warn Notices in the company’s social networking tool and started getting people to sign up. I’m hoping that this will help cope with some of the isolation that can occur in these lay off situations. In addition, I’m hoping that we can share resources going forward. I also hope that for everyone that this effort continues past the 60 days, this group can continue outside of Boeing. About six people have signed up so far, including a previous manager of mine.