Day 13 – Transition – Addendum

Matt is a friend who Boeing kick in the butt last year.  He has been at this longer than I have and has been invaluable in helping me along.  He has also read through this diatribe of ideas and regularly comments back to me.  Yesterday, he added to the Search conversation, so I thought, with his permission, that I would share some of his thoughts:

there's not a lot i can add to what i've already told you, but since
you asked ("I would love to hear what others are doing for searching, and what you have found to be helpful.")...

i have sent 5 applications from both SimplyHired and Indeed. this year. 1 and 3 respectively last year. careerbuilder is the winner both years by a huge margin. 47 total.

i use my own spreadsheet for tracking. just use sites to feed me
suggestions.  i have a "bucket" that i copy potential jobs into. in Firefox it's a bookmarks folder and i can drag and drop them into it. you could use a folder on your desktop or several other methods. find something that's quick, easy and works for you.

the "process" is to put things that look promising into that so you can go back to them later. then i don't feel like i have to get to the end of something, which allows me to not spend ALL my time searching. search-do something else-come back and really consider what I've dropped in there. also, if i look and there are 6 things in there, i know it isn't going to take as long as if there are 16. so i can plan that time better.

I tried careerbuilder today, it is a nice tool.  It excels after you get your list 20,000 jobs in the last 24 hours; it gives you some additional tools to quickly reduce that list.  It breaks down the list by: Category (Management, Sales, IT), company; city, and state.  This seemed to be powerful.  It has a nice advanced search interface that is easy to understand. 

There must be something about how you lose your job search engine virginity.  Simply Hired was my first, everything else is in relation to her.  These others are good, and I need to get better at looking at each of them in turn, but for me Simply Hired is still the one for me.

Love hearing thoughts on what I’m sharing (good and bad).  You can leave a comment on this site or send them to chrisabbey@comcast.net.

Day 13 – Transition – Search, Search, Searching

Continue to search and search each day.  Still trying to learn how to do this well.  The tools that we have are amazing, when compared with how I looked for work two decades ago.  No more going out and pounding the pavement, thought maybe I should be.

Since I started searching, I have liked to Simply Hired aggregator site mainly due to its linkage with LinkedIn; providing people I know at different companies.  I also like it’s lay out.  I tried Indeed, but didn’t find a reason to use it over Simply Hired.  When I was at my WorkSource meeting this week, I was asked if I used Indeed.  This was the second time that it had been recommended over Simply Hired, so today I took a closer look.

Both are linked to a lot of jobs and can easily bring up more jobs than you can look for if you are not careful.   I used the same search criteria in both engines to see what the results would come out like.  Indeed brought up more jobs, but I think the duplication was greater.  There was a different mix of jobs.  Gates Foundation was better represented on Indeed.  Accenture was better represented on Simply Hired.  WorkSource was actually better represented on Simply Hired than on Indeed.

Both have the ability to save job links and to add notes about the job, a handy feature.  Simply Hired also allows you to rate the jobs with stars.  These tools are important because I find that searching is multistep process. 

1. Glance through your searches and locate stuff you want to take a close look at.  This is usually just because of a title or the company.  Save these to your job basket. 
2. Go back through job basket reading through the requisitions very quickly.  For me this means I miss most of the information.  I’m looking for stuff that disqualifies me, especially specific requirements I do not meet; I’m trying to delete as many as possible out of the basket, so I don’t have to deal with so many. 
3. Now I reread what is left trying to really understand the position and whether this is something that I would like to consider. 
4. Step 4 is to go back and apply for the most important one first. 

At every step along the way, I get interrupted; having notes and stars helps in the process when interrupted and also helps in prioritizes the best opportunities.

I was surprised that different jobs came up.  My original assumption was that they both would bring up the same, which they do cover a lot of the same ground, but there are differences, so I think I will have to be more diligent about checking out both, and maybe doing some cross references between the two.

I would love to hear what others are doing for searching, and what you have found to be helpful.

Day 12 – Transition – Missing the Groove

I don’t think I have it yet.  I don’t think that I have found that ease of process that indicates that I know what I am doing and that I am doing it to the best of my ability. 

My day isn’t structured correctly yet.  I haven’t figured out how to get my job searching, household chores, and exercising done in an efficient manner yet.  I’m not achieving the level of job searching that I want to be at.  I’m starting to get caught up on the searching, and I can see the rhythm is getting closer, but with each day comes a little frustration that I haven’t gotten more done.

I’m starting to think of adjustments to the cleaning routine that will buy a little more time.  Doing some things once a week instead of twice a week and maybe some other every other week instead of once a week.  These little adjustments can make big differences.

I have also been exercises mid day, which makes a nice break and pick me up from doing computer work in the morning. 

I think I may have to structure my daily calendar, so that I have set times for doing the different things I want to do.  It is easy to start answering emails and stray into a black hole of cyber net and lose track of an hour or a morning.

Yesterday, I met with my TAA advisor at the WorkSource office, Washington’s unemployment office.  The education portion of TAA has been deferred for the time being.  TAA will pay up to 25K for me to get retrained (with stipulations) but I would have to go full time. I’m not sure that we are in a position for having me in school full time right now. So by deferring these benefits, I can still use them later if I change my mind. 

One of the nice benefits of the TAA is that the schooling could be used years down the line.  Say I find another job and 2 years from now they lay me off.  At that time, I would be able to use the education benefits from TAA to retrain.  I thought I was completely signed up before, but now after signing another big batch of papers, now, I am officially signed up.  This was a two hour meeting that because of travel and prep ended up taking about 4 hours.

Then today, I spent a couple hours adjusting my job log so that it will better include the information that the state will need.  Since I was working in Open Office this took a while longer than it should have.  But in the end it is working well and i learn a lot about Open Office Calc.

I also received the Cobra information from Boeing this week.  It made little to no sense.  I have to call into the Boeing Service line to get signed up.  Others have said these people are very helpful, they make sense of it all.  This will use up another chunk of time to read through this information and then call the service center and get it taken care of.

My exercising is going well.  Some people claim that it takes 21 days for something to become a habit or an ingrained behavior.  I’m not sure if there is a number that you can pulled out of your hat and say it works for everything.  Sixteen years ago when I stopped smoking it took a lot longer than 21 days to get over it.

It takes many times repeating a behavior before it feels natural.  In some ways you act yourself into new behaviors.  You just start doing it and ignore the discomfort until it goes away.  My exercising is going well, because I have been able to consistently stick with it;I have been able the resist the “let’s not do it now” voice that tries to derail my efforts.  I’m wanting to lift weights every third day, and then do an average of 30 minutes per day of aerobic exercise.  Even with taking last weekend off due to traveling, I was well above the 1/2 hour average.  And I have gone and lifted the weights as planned.  Though I could increase the amount that I have been lifting, I haven’t because I’m more concerned with getting the regular schedule going than how much I’m lifting.  The weights will increase in due time.

I need to get over these chunks of times that I’m expending right now getting started again since the layoff: having to put my resume into Boeing again, going to WorkSource for this first long initial meeting, setting up cobra and getting my job log in compliance with the state requirements.  Other areas that are taking extra time concern the cleaning and meals and associated processes; these will be an area of big change as I get over the initial learning curve.  Hopefully, the family can live on my cooking until I learn how to do it better. 

The exercising is seeming to be grooving well.  Job searching and household chores need some work; I’m missing the groove here.  It is important to get these down so that I can also make some headway on remodeling the house.

Day 11- Transition – Baseline Part II

Being more physically fit has ramifications on the job search.  Getting more oxygen to the brain increases brain power.  Being physically fit reduces depression, stress, and increases good hormones thus creating a happier demeanor.  All of which improves the ability to apply for, interview for and get a new position.  There are many other benefits too numerous to go into here.

In Day 6 – Transition Baseline Part I, I introduced the notion of creating creative tension by creating tension between where I want to be (future state) and where I currently am (current reality).  Getting a very clear understanding of my current health and physical fitness and creating a tension in my mind by comparing this to where I want to be.

I talked about knowing my health numbers (like blood pressure) and getting clear about what this numbers mean.  In this post, I would like to continue on a little deeper into this understanding of current reality.

The YMCA of Bothell has a large scale, I’m assuming that it is accurate; this is where I did my official weigh in on last Tuesday.  I have also measured my body at the neck, Bicep, Chest, Waist, Hips, Thigh, and Calves (see body measure instructions below).  This will be helpful for understanding in what ways my body is changing as time goes on. 

BTW, this Y is an excellent facility.  The people are helpful, the equipment is great and well  maintained, their is all sorts of programs included in the membership, and it is completely family friendly.  If you are looking for a place to join, I would recommend looking at the Bothell Y if you are in the area.

Another number that is needed for the baseline is your Body Mass Index. Along with calculating BMI, the website at http://home.fuse.net/clymer/bmi/ takes as inputs your height and waist measurement then calculates a host of ratios.  A explanation of each number and what good or bad means for each is given.  These are good for understanding where I am and in some cases for understanding what my proper numbers should be.  I found that I’m not as bad as I often tell myself; but then again, I’m on the borderline and have been heading in the wrong direction for a couple of years.  Now is the time for my to do something before my health is seriously impacted.

As I was looking at different options for the physical fitness component of this baseline I found one that I really liked.  This is what the US Air force uses; it is easy and well documented.  It only includes 4 measures:

Time to run 1 1/2 miles	50%
# of push Ups in 1 minute	10%
# of crunches in 1 minute	10%
Body Composition (height to waist ratio)	30%

The percentage to the right is how much each area figures into the overall score.  I love the simplicity of it.   It has adjustments for age and sex. The tables list out the score you receive based on your input, then add up the four scores to see your overall fitness.  Above 75 is passing, above 90 is excellent.

I wasn’t anywhere near passing.  I was simply amazed that I could actually run the 1 1/2 miles.   Of course, use personal caution here, if you haven’t been exercising or have health issues please consult a doctor before starting an exercise routine or even doing strenuous baseline setting.  The idea isn’t to kill yourself but to get a clear notion of where you are and then to slowly improve these numbers.  My numbers are low.  And now I have measurement that I can compare my progress against in the next few months.  At this point, I’m more concerned with implementing the behavioral changes necessary to see improvements rather than setting a goal to obtain a certain number (like shooting for 75% by September).

If you want to learn more about the Air Force Fitness test, please see: http://usmilitary.about.com/od/airforce/a/affitness.htm.  I’m sure there are many other references, but I found this one fairly easy to understand and well laid out.

I have created a spreadsheet that is holding all of these numbers.  Every so often I will repeat the baseline process and check the numbers finding where I am doing good and where I’m failing.  Consciously reestablishing my current reality as it changes. 

So that completes the physical base lining.  There is still another type of baseline that I need to complete, but this will take a couple weeks, and I’m not ready to start this yet.  This is looking at my eating habits and base lining how much and when I’m eating.  This will involve filling out a food/mood diary. 

Currently, I’m trying to implement expanded and regular exercise time into my schedule.  And at the same time learning to plan and prepare the meals at our house.  I plan to start the food diary in a few weeks, sooner if time allows.

BODY Measurement Instructions

The tape should be pulled to where it is lying flat against the skin all the way around. Like with taking skinfold measurements, your goal with body tape measurements is consistency. Take them the same every time you take them and you will get an accurate view of your progress with each body part.

Below and pictured to the right is a list of suggested sites to regularly measure.

Neck - Standing, measure your neck at its largest girth, right over the Adam's apple.

Shoulder - Standing, can either be measured as a straight line from the largest points on each shoulder across the chest or as a girth measurement all the way around the body.

Bicep - Measure at its largest girth, can be taken relaxed with arms at side, relaxed with arm bent, flexed with arm bent or all three.

Chest - Standing, measure with breath out just above the nipple.

Waist - Standing, measure at the narrowest point or at the midway point between the top of the hip bone and the bottom of the rib cage.

Hips - Measure at the largest girth, where the butt is protruding the greatest.

Thigh - Standing, measure at the largest girth, just below the butt.

Calf - Seated if you are measuring yourself or standing if you have a partner, measure at its largest girth.

Day 10 – Transition - Drag

Applied for my first unemployment check today.  It took over an hour; I’m sure because I was doing it wrong, but each time I would do something (like change my address) it would make me wait 10 minutes until it could process the last action before proceeding. So, I would leave and do some other job searching, then come back and do some more unemployment applying.  I had to set up my address, automatic deposit, and then to the actual filing of the claim.  The filing a claim would normally take less than 5 minutes, it was just this first one that is complicated.

That confirms it, I am an official drag on society.  First check should be coming shortly.

Received information about cobra insurance from Boeing today.  It is near impossible to understand what they are trying to say.  It would be nice if before they sent out their insurance/legal-eese they would have a regular person read it and maybe convert it back to English; the language is just too obtuse for regular consumption.

I wasn’t able to find any jobs to apply for today, but I didn’t get through all that much searching.  I need to spend more time each day searching; the rest of the week should be fairly open for searching. 

Tomorrow will have meeting with the worksource people.  We will be talking about TAA benefits and what the worksource office has to offer.

My numbers are:

April 23rd LinkedIn group              24
Boeing Inside Jobs                        31 
Jobs applied for outside:               14 (+3) 
Interviews:                                    4 (+2 informational )Rejections:                                  35 (+3)