Taking a Break

I decided to take the last post off but as there were no views, it probably does not matter.

That might be a good thing.

I'm back to looking for another position.

I learned a lot from the last opportunity.

I learned that I need to be more direct about what I want.

I want to recruit, hire, and staff.

I don't mind doing more than recruiting; HR generalist, payroll, training, managing, etc.

But if I am not allowed to do at least SOME type of recruiting, staffing, and/or hiring, then I feel I will have no interest in the job.

Recruiting, staffing, and/or hiring is my passion.  That is the direction I want to go.  That is the career I am choosing.

I also need to make sure that what I am offered as in a position, is what I am actually going to do.  Maybe get it in writing before I say yes.

I need to make sure that I know what my duties are, at least some type of responsibilities listed somewhere, aside from the job posting.

Right now, I am taking it easy, working on school work, looking for another position, getting healthy, and finding my path.

I went from one job to another without any break and well, I think this is supposed to be the break that I should have taken.  I mean, I worked Sunday night and went to work at a new office on Monday morning.  The break is nice, but I am itching to work.

I did have an interview today with a financial firm.  It was very interesting.  It looks promising.

I have had some good connections.  I am working very hard on finding that job that will help me to my goals for next year.

So hire me!

Jumping Through Their Hoops

It's almost the end of the month.  I have two companies interested in me, although I think one company's interest is higher than the other at this moment. 

The one I've been working with, has asked for my references and required me to take Office tests.  Three tests: Word, Powerpoint, and Excel.  I wasn't really nervous about the tests, but my work and school schedule has been all over the place these last few weeks, including weekends.  

Jobs and classes have been cancelled, only to be crammed into make up dates.  I've had to finagle interviews, tests, work schedules, homework, and life into small time fragments; not an easy task.

The three tests I took were something.  I aced the Word and the Powerpoint.  My weakness I knew, was going to be Excel.  Even though I use all the programs everyday at work, which I consider myself a pro user, I don't use all the functions that some companies may require.

I was a bit nervous but I passed Excel quite well.  I did a little refresher course from online videos to make sure I knew what everything was used for in the program.  You can't go from one window to another to figure out how to do things while you take the test.  It stops cheating on the same computer, although I could have used another computer to look up answers.  I didn't. 

I plan to take some classes to update my Office skills. 

I e-mailed the recruiter after I completed the tests and she said I did very well.  Thank goodness.

Now for the references. 

I had to really look for some very close friends.  It's one of my weaknesses because I moved a lot and my last 3 jobs were with one person each as the owner or boss.  I don't even know if the last two are still alive because they were caregiving jobs.  The ideal references would be a boss, a former boss, and someone I've known for a long time.  I contacted the three people I felt I could trust.  For anyone who asked me to be a reference, I always ask if I say yes, then it has to go both ways...if I am your reference, I get to use you as a reference, too.  I built up my references quickly.

One of my best friends who was a former boss and mentor, was my first choice.  If I could choose one person to represent me in anything, it would be him.  He's just amazing and I know he would do what he could to help me out.  I spent a lot of time and energy helping him out when he worked with me.  He has integrity.  He is very helpful and kind. 

He text me this morning to tell me that he already got the call from one company about me.  I asked how it went, and he said that the person on the other line said that he was a good reference and asked about my talents.  Whew!  That's really a lot to ask. 

I've never gone through references before.  I've had them on applications for other jobs when I started college.  I don't know if the other two will be called, but if they are not called, I'm good because of this first guy.  I'm sure the other two would contact me if they were called. 

I promised a steak dinner to my friend if I get one of the two jobs.  See?  I show appreciation.

Although I am excited about this job opportunity, I'm not holding my breath.  I am still going to another interview with the IT company next week.  Whew!  Timing is going to be tricky this week and next.  I have been put on a schedule in less than 24 hour notice today.  That's how good I am with multi-tasking.  You can never be sure.

I'd like to have something by September.  I need a break from searching for a new job.  It's been tiring.  I'd like to know that my efforts since last year (well, since I attained my bachelors, although I was looking two and a half years before I started working for the current job) have not gone in vain. 

I think it's going to go well either way. 

More Opportunites, Better Outlook

It's a pretty good week, so far.  I have had an interview at least once a week.  My latest interview seemed to be a really good fit.  It seems like every time I get an interview, the job seems better than the previous job interview.

The interview went well and the person who I interviewed with seemed to connect really well with me.  We were laughing and talking about all of my experience.  There was nothing that prohibited me from showing my best side and from being the right person for the job.

For some reason, I have a lot of hope for this job.  It's a recruiting job that will allow me to recruit a variety of people.  I really like this idea although I don't get to just focus on IT recruiting.  The pay is pretty good.  It's not as good as my last interview which have haven't written about here.  But the pay is good enough that if they do offer it to me soon I am ready to go.

The previous interview I had last week was with an another IT company.  This one was located in the city and paid really well.  But it was only focus on IT.  Even the benefits were wonderful.  It was a dream job.  Unfortunately, I haven't heard anything this week from the person I spoke to so I'm almost thinking that it is not go.  That's okay.  I have a good feeling that the job I interviewed for this week, is something that I will have a really good chance at getting.

I hope I'm not getting my hopes up.  I e-mailed the person I interviewed with and thanked her for the interview.  She said that she's going to get a hold of me on Friday or Monday so I have something to look forward to.  But now I am extremely anxious for Friday and Monday to get here.

In the meantime, I have to figure out what I have to do with my job now.  I have to make sure that someone will be able to do my job and that there will be enough people to replace all the positions that I take care of right now.  That is going to be hard.  I have a feeling that I might wind up working on Saturdays with this company until they are comfortable with me leaving the job.  The other thing is I don't know if the new job is a contract job or a full-time job.  So if I get that phone call on Friday I will definitely asked the following questions:

1. Is this a full-time job?
2. If not, how long as the contract job?
3. And if this is a contract job, what do I get to do next?
4. Do I get benefits?
5. When is payday?
6. Do I get vacation time or time off?
7. Will I be required to work long hours while I'm training for the first few months?

I'm actually really excited about this new job.  It sounds like I'm going to be over a department of new hires and I'm in charge of things like payroll and making sure they get their jobs done.  I think I'm ready for this new challenge.

Every time I think that I have a good chance of procuring a new job, I always feel guilty about leaving my old job.  I really like working with my boss but circumstances now have it that I need to get a job that I'm passionate about and that will pay my living expenses.  I do have to say that this current job I have, introduced me to recruiting which I absolutely love.  And I wouldn't mind working with my boss and some of the people I work with in another capacity.

I do hope I'm not jumping the fence though.  But I'm really excited and I can't wait to hear what's going to go on.

Cross your fingers, say your prayers, send good wishes, I hope to have good news by the weekend or next week.

What To Do About the Blog

I had another interview today.  It was with an IT recruiting company.  It is something that I want to do because that adds a little more experienced my recruiting experience. 

I had been thinking about this question:

When I find a job, what will I do with this blog?

I think the first thing I would do is celebrate the fact that I got a job.

The next thing I would probably do is talk about my recruiting experiences or my job experiences, if I don't get a recruiting job.

I would also talk about some of the fun things I'll be able to do with a steady job.

So just because I won't be looking for job doesn't mean I won't be writing about work.  I've gone back to twitter and have signed up with a bunch of recruiting accounts that have passed on some interesting information.  I want to use the information to write about on this blog.  I want to make my blog stand out a little bit more.  Until the new job is found, the next phase of this blog is on the standstill for the moment.

I had a really good interview today.  I took time out to talk to other people in the office.  I hope they really liked me.

The person who interviewed me found out I did a lot of other office work and so he's even offered to think about me for another position that's going to be open next month.  I would rather have a new job by the end of the month.

Looking at the pros and cons with this opportunity, the only con is that it will pay less than I want, but the pros is that I will get a weekly paycheck and bonuses.  So the con really isn't that big a deal if I know what I'm doing.

The manager said it will take about 2 to 3 months for recruiter to get to know the system.  I don't think it would take me that long.  I already know how to recruit.  The only thing that would take a little bit of time with be getting my customers together, but I have such a huge network of people through social areas that I think I would be able to do a really good job.

I'm still looking at other jobs.  When I came home, I had an e-mail waiting for me about another job opportunity.  I'm at a loss here because I would love to do the IT recruiting but I would love to do more recruiting to get more people work.  I know that IT recruiting makes money.  It's not easy to get into IT recruiting and this would be a wonderful experience.  Plus I love the building and the people there seem to be really really good.  I would even learn the cultural language that was there.  There is definitely a certain culture, both work wise and ethnic wise.

I will have to see. 

Going on a Business Trip

One of my favorite things about any company I work for is the opportunity to go on a business trip.  I love business trips.  I remember my first one with my first job in college.  I was lucky to go down to LA, actually La Brea, and was able to spend the weekend with my family down there.  I took so many  pictures of the hotel room for everybody back at home.  I still have those pictures.

I think I went on another trip for another job but can't remember what it was.  It probably was not something very far or overnight or anything like that. 

This is my first business trip for the company.  Most of the time, we travel  90% to 100% of the time for this company, so travel is part of our daily life.

I'm excited, but I'm still looking for another full-time job.  I'll be going to Portland for a day and a half.  I have relatives up there so I'm hoping that I'll be able to spend time with them the day I get there.

I'm going for some recruiting training.

We have a new directors of operation in our region.  He has decided to have salary employees interview and/or hire new employees.  When he told me that, he kept telling me that this new move would not have an effect on my hours.  I told him I was not worried because I was going to be starting school soon and in my mind, I knew that school would help me find a full-time job.

My boss is really busy.  The new director of operations has given him even more assignments.  I'm not sure where he is supposed to fit all this work and my work together.  I'm supposed to help my boss out.  My boss is very accommodating and he's trying really hard to give me a lot of hours so that I will stay and be happy, at least while he's there.

Looking ahead though, I see that this new procedure IS going to have an effect on my hours.  Partly, I'm happy because I need more time to study so I can get the good grades for school.  But, I still have my living expenses to pay every month.  I don't believe that there is a good balance at this time and so I am reaching out to my connections on LinkedIn and the job opportunity e-mails that were sent to me.

There was one job that fit me to a T that I applied for today.  I get really excited when I see a job that fits me well.  I don't know how to kick the company into hiring me because I can fit the company, and I'm available.

I just got to keep trying.  I went through about 10 e-mails today contacting people who had sent me job opportunities or openings.  It's hard to keep track and get on top of the job opportunities when I worked all week in the office.  It's not really kosher to be looking for work at work.  I don't like to do other things at work except reading during lunch or my own break time.  It makes me feel guilty.  lt also keep me from focusing on the job at hand.  

On the Way to the Second Degree

I started my studies in my master degree.  I decided that I am going to study organizational leadership and human resources.

I am in my sixth week from 8 weeks of class.  I just finished two midterms and aced my first one.  I am still waiting on the second one to be graded.  I am enjoying what I'm learning right now.  It's very relatable to what I'm doing right now at work. 

I am very lucky to have learned how to write good papers. 

On the new job forefront, no luck.  The offers come in waves.  Right now, there are tons of e-mails that I need to get to, to be able to maybe have some work, July and August whenever it's very slow for me.  I just want to get ahead of the problem so I don't wind up desperate during the holidays.

I'm thinking that between my Masters and my doctorate studies, I am going to try to get my special certificates or licenses that human resource management holds.  I'm not sure how I can take those tests but I think it'll help me find a better job.  I really hoping that I'll find something by the end of this year it, that by the time I finish my degree this time next year, I will have some really good opportunities.

For now, I've got about 20 e-mails to get back to and some phone calls to make about these opportunites.

Double Duty

As the days and my assignments get fuller, it seems that I cannot get to this blog as much as I wanted.  I don't think I'm overly busy or more busy than I was in January.  My assignments have been different and require me to spend much more time than I'm used to.

I had a temporary assignment two weeks ago to take over another office's hiring assignments.  This was with the previous manager who hired me for this job.  I was happy and excited to show my stuff.

Ideally, the district hiring manager would be taking over this position that I took over.  She has been recovering from surgery so I was next in line in the district.  Quite an honor.

I spent every other day in San Jose.  I was finishing the onboarding assignments that the manager had completed while his hiring manager was out.  It wasn't easy to be able to keep track of both offices.  I had to use my assistant to take over some of the hiring while I was down in San Jose.  For the time that I spent there, I didn't get to do a lot.  I spent a lot of time traveling.  The San Jose office also takes care Salinas and I spent almost 4 hours driving from where I work down to Salinas.  Half my day was driving that day.

After week and a half of lots of overtime and weekend work to catch up on both offices, the hiring manager came back.  I had a meeting with both the manager and the hiring manager to talk about what I do effectively.  Not realizing that the manager was still on the phone, I talked about what I do, hopefully not offending the manager.

One of the things I kept telling the other hiring manager is that she needs to communicate.  I told her that my boss calls me every day to ask me what I'm doing even though I give him a weekly schedule.  I know that I can't get my job done unless he knows what I'm doing.  

Today after being out of the office for four days, I came back to the public computer in office not working.  Everybody else had tried to get the computer working and it didn't work.  Luckily for me, it worked when I needed it for one of my new hires to finish his paperwork.  But afterwards, it completely died again.  I had to figure out what we were going to be doing, concerning a computer.  Instead we decided that my laptop for work would wind up as the computer to use in the office.  Then, we had to figure out how to keep the computer stable and locked up so that it's available for non-managers but keep it safe.  I spent my day finding bits and pieces of the desk lock so that I can make sure the computer is there for the day.

I'm the type of person who keeps everything because you never know when you're going to need it.  When you finally figure out what it is, you can get rid of it if you don't need it anymore.

My last entry I think I had a job interview.  I haven't heard from them since so I'm assuming I did not get the job.  Today, I got a phone call from a company that sounded really excited to talk to me.  I was kind of excited also.  Interesting that the interviewer asked me to bring some of my writings that I've done.  I get to display a few of my e-mails and responses that I've written very thoroughly.   Writing is one of my strengths.  The interviewer also asked me about PowerPoint examples, although I've never done any for work per se.  I've done PowerPoint for school homework and teaching in church.  It's not as if I couldn't put one together.  I'm quite confident that I can.  It's a fun thing I liked doing for assignments during my studies for my degree.  I guess after doing it 40 times or so it becomes fun.

In a few weeks, I'm supposed to start classes on my Masters degree.  I'm not sure that's going to happen right away especially if things work out like they were supposed to six months ago; job, then moved out, and then school.  I've already been scheduled to work that night and I'm a little surprised.  I need to decide whether or not enough go through it right away or wait for summer.

The whole idea of starting right away was to get into school within my six months of finishing my bachelor's degree.  Well, I didn't make it within six months, so I am going to have to start paying for my loan for school.  I'm just have to figure out a way to get more hours, or a new job.

I really don't want to delay my studies.  If I start now, I'll be done by next summer.  I wanted summer to myself and maybe start my doctorate in January 2016.  But if I wait until summer, I don't think classes start until July or August, which means I'll be spending most of my whole summer studying.  I really don't mind, but I was hoping for some time off between classes.  It depends on whether or not I can stay with this company that I'm with right now.

When I have a feeling that I'm going to get a job, I start planning my life.  Some may feel that this is a way of "counting your eggs before they hatch" but I think it's a way of planning your life for change.  Sometimes though, it's overwhelming when you don't get the job.  It means cleaning the chalkboard and starting all over again.

I should be happy that people are calling me more often than before.  It means that I have something to offer and people want it. 

The company I work for is going to be very, very busy in May.  For the next two weeks all I have is hiring to do.  Not a problem as long as everybody shows up for interviews.  We're starting off slow again but I think if I fill my days up until next week, we'll be good.