Job search over?

After seven and a half months looking, and five and a half months actually out of work, I finally received an offer.  I’m taking a few days to consider it.  But thank God it’s there!

The job search: What NOT to do

Today I was discussing my discouraging job search with a blogging buddy who is in the same sinking boat.  Somehow we got on the subject of blog topics and he suggested I write up a list of job-hunting tips.

Problem is, seven-and-a-half months of hard effort have not yet garnered a job offer so while I am certainly a reluctant and repeated veteran of the unemployment wars I don’t feel qualified to suggest anything positive to other career seekers.

However, I do feel up to providing a bulleted breakdown of things to avoid, so here goes.

An alternate history for Nokia’s internet tablets

Many readers of this blog already know of my involvement with the launch of the Nokia N800 internet tablet.  I took a high personal interest in the product line that went beyond my normal duties, because I saw a great deal of potential for the devices and their technology.  That interest led me to constantly suggest ideas for software applications and use cases.  Unfortunately for me, there was a development agenda in place that allowed little room for additional exploration.  This agenda was deliberately conservative and is just now enabling maturity in the device family, four years after the first true Nokia Internet Tablet (the 770) was introduced.

But what if Nokia had taken a radically different approach?  That thought has been eating at me a lot lately as speculation around the next device grows.  So for sheer sake of a wishful, whimsical writing exercise, I decided to construct an alternate product timeline with the benefit of my own hindsight and opinions combined with a vast accumulation of user input.  Note that this is not intended to be reflective of reality!

So without further ado, let’s rewind a few years and play with the idea a bit (all hyperlinks are actual and not part of this fantasy)…

Getting out of the box

Very recently I poked a little fun at an unnamed job applicant’s attempt to stretch his grocery sacking experience into the area of packaging design.  But lurking near that tongue-in-cheek soliloquy was an old rant I’ve been meaning to put to voice for some time.

Today I bought two different health supplement products, two packages of each.  In both cases, I was able to combine the entire contents into a single container.  Then I summarily discarded the unnecessary packages.

Although my discomfort with this was somewhat mitigated by our habit of recycling in this household, I’m still disturbed that manufacturers cannot seem to move past this very wasteful habit.  I wouldn’t mind quite as much, except now they’re leaving out the cotton stuffing that used to keep pills from rattling.  Hey, I used that thing!

Undermining the Internet

There are so many threats to the commercial Internet as it emerged in the late 1990s that I could make that subject the sole source of articles here and never run out of ammo.

But specifically, right now, I want to shine a bright light on the developments surrounding everyone’s favorite online flea market and flagrant prostitution ring, Craigslist.

Is Nokia’s Ovi sizzling or fizzling?

Some months ago I last touched on the prospects of Nokia’s relatively new internet service, Ovi.com, and recent news made me believe it is now time for a follow-up.

The first item to touch on is the revelation that Ovi will be scaled back a bit in scope.  The media sharing portion has apparently not gained enough traction in the time accrued thus far, so further development will be halted at least for the time being.  As with anything in these economically-uncertain times, it’s difficult to speculate on whether this is truly the start of a permanent drawdown in that service or perhaps just a temporary retreat.  Personally I hope Nokia does continue the service, even though I admit it’s up against some very entrenched competitors (such as the very popular Flickr).  As I opined in the previous article, there still remains quite a bit of potential in parts of the world not fully served by established providers that are popular in the US, Europe, etc.

Nokia could still gain respect and admiration (and surely users) by providing that holy grail of internet services, the single-sign on experience.  Imagine a one-stop-shop front end for all the various media services out there!  True, there would be logistical and possibly legal hurdles to clear but the prospect is exciting nonetheless.

The job search: Hiring the unemployed

I’m going to make another quick request of hiring managers:

If you have a choice of 2 equally-qualified people to hire, and one is unemployed while the other is looking to change companies, please make every effort to hire the unemployed person.  On one hand I’m saying that as someone out of work going on five months who lost out on at least one opportunity to someone who was already employed at another company.  On the other, there is a net benefit to society by pulling from the ranks of the unemployed but not so much by accepting someone who is already working somewhere else.

Thanks.

The job search: Titles and riddles

A while back I implored the warm bodies involved in job posting and hiring to improve upon a few aspects of the process.  After an attractive hyperlink led me down the wrong rabbit’s hole this morning I decided to expound further on one in particular: job descriptions.

The offender today was a listing for an Operations Coordinator.  As a current job seeker who has frequently found himself in such facilitating roles, even without the title, I eagerly clicked the link to view the description.  But they weren’t really looking for an Operations Coordinator at all– they wanted an administrative assistant for human resources.

Okay, by some stretch one could get there… using the same logic that promotes plumbers to Sanitation Engineers.  But wouldn’t HR Administrative Assistant be more accurate for the job seeker?

It reminds me of an anecdote recently related to me by the recruiter who helped get me into my original job with Nokia a few years ago.  He was supporting a client in finding a Packaging Engineer and was passed a resumé that just flat confounded him.  The goal was to find someone with broad experience ranging from product conceptualizing to marketing.  Instead he received an application from a big-thinking grocery sacker.

Anyway, this isn’t supposed to be an Easter egg hunt.  Once again on behalf of job hunters everywhere I am beseeching those responsible: for our sake and yours, please think these job titles through carefully.  The time you save may be your own. 

James Strock and Modern Leadership

I recently attended a meeting of our local chapter of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) and as is often the case I was inspired by the guest speaker, this time a gentleman named James Strock.  His presentation was on 21st century leadership and how it does differ from the skills and experience required, say, centuries ago.

I jotted down some notes and I’ll share them here as bullet points rather than write up an entire treatise on his work.  However, some of the speculation is my interpretation/extrapolation and not necessarily what the speaker said verbatim:

Obama takes aim at loophole

I was greeted this morning by one of the most welcome stories I’ve read in some time.  US President Barack Obama has signaled his intent to close some infamous gaps in our byzantine tax code.  Specifically, loopholes that allow US corporate entities as well as individuals to evade their fair share of taxes.

In my opinion this is a good move for the US in general, as one goal is to remove incentives for US-based companies to create jobs overseas rather than onshore.  I’m not against multinationals per se, but on the other hand the extreme loss of our manufacturing base has troubled me for some time.