Interviewing

 (From 8/11/16)

I've been diligently looking for a new job even since it became pretty clear I was going to lose my previous one.  I contacted every recruiter who had ever contacted me on LinkedIn since I joined in 2008 or so.  I have a couple leads, but the best lead I currently have resulted from one of those recruiters telling me he had an opening with a company based out of New York but with an office in St. Louis.  I would still work from home, but I'd probably travel to that St. Louis office a fair amount.  The company is a competitor of Actuate's, so I'm somewhat familiar with them from my time there.  They are an older company, but they are very stable.  It's in the business intelligence realm, so I know the industry well.  My potential boss, Jim, seems really great.  We've spoken over the phone several times, including during my phone interview.  I've also interviewed with several other people at the company over the phone, and they seem to be really impressed with me.  I even talked to a former colleague from Actuate who now works there, and he recommended it as a place to work and also said he'd put in a good word for me.  So today I'm in St. Louis for my first in-person interview since I have been out of work.  And if you only count my career jobs (meaning not Hastings, for example), I realized this is only my sixth ever in-person interview.  I had one at Dell in 2002 (for a job I didn't get), my Actuate interview, interviews at Cerner and iModules when I was considering leaving Actuate in 2005 or 2006, and my Fuze interview (ThinkingPhones, at the time).  I guess that's what steady employment will do, and I'm thankful for that. Anyway, I interviewed with two different people today, and it went really well.  One was Jim, my potential boss, and another older guy who would be my mentor.  They really liked me.  Jim made it clear after the interview that based on what he heard and saw (I did a presentation) that I was his number one candidate.  So that's exciting.  I will still need to come back next week and interview with another higher-up guy, and there are still other hurdles, but I'm excited that I might soon have a job offer.  This isn't the most exciting job, but I'm pretty sure it's one I would like and one that I would do well at and be able to stay there for a long time.

Because Meghan is now working, we needed child care today for the girls, as they don't go to school today, though Joshua does.  I asked Julie if she could help, and she nicely agreed to do so.  I dropped the girls off there this morning before leaving for the airport, and then Alaina helped us by bringing Joshua over there after he was done with school.  So the cousins got some time together to play today, and I'm grateful to Julie for helping us out while we try to juggle schedules during this transition period.