Last Updated on 4 years by Christopher G Mendla
I am now into day 200 of my Great Job Search. I’m getting a steady influx of calls from recruiters. I’ve tweaked my job search a little. I apply a principle I call PEER to a lot of aspects of my life. It is Plan, Execute, Evaluate, Revise. There are a lot of variations of that methodology used by many people.
One of my goals is to get a position where I am covered by insurance. As I mentioned in a previous post, thanks to the ‘Affordable Care Act”, our local chamber of commerce can no longer offer health insurance for it’s members. The open season is a long way away.
Since my unemployment is ending, I’m starting to really push for more consulting and for short term contracts. Neither would help with the insurance but it will keep an income stream.
I’m in a continuous PEER mode. Here are some evaluations I’ve done:
Consulting Work.
Evaluation
- I should have kept the consulting business with at least 5 to 10 hours of work each week. It easy easy to rest on your laurels when you are making over six figures.
- I need to build up the consulting. When I get a full time position, I can ramp it down to 10-15 hours a week. I like working on projects so doing 2 hours a night and 5 hours during the weekend is entirely doable.
Revision
- The Craigslist ads are bringing some good leads and a couple of good clients. The investment is minimal.
- Upwork – I’ve had an account for a while but never really pursued jobs. Upwork seems to be a good place to prospect for development work.
- You can choose shorter term gigs.
- The free version gives you 50 ‘connect’ points. Writing an average proposal uses two. The points reset every month. I should have been putting out at least a couple of proposals each week.
- The target now is to use about 1/4 of my monthly points each week . That is about six proposals per week.
Job Search Target
Evaluation
- Recruiters for the larger companies do take some significant effort to work with. Generally a contact involves
- A half hour or so on the phone for an initial meeting
- An hour or so phone screen with the employer.
- A one to two hour in person interview with a possibility of a second interview.
Revision
- I was concentrating on the recruiter aspect. What I let slip off the radar was searching for positions with smaller companies that are local.
- Smaller companies might pay less in some cases but if they are local, the commuting costs are lower.
- The Target now is to scan Dice, Monster, and Indeed for local positions.
Skillset highlighting.
Evaluation
- WordPress has a high supply and demand. There are a lot of people who claim to work with WordPress but there are also a lot of smaller companies whose site is built on WordPress.
- I looked at my WordPress skills and they are above average.
Revision
- When searching for open positions, especially local positions, search for WordPress
- Create an additional resume geared toward WordPress.
At Day 200 with no pending offers I need to make some revisions to my game plan (well I have one but that is waiting on the Federal Government to get it’s funding situation straightened out).
As far as the health care situation, I understand that if I form an LLC with one other employee who is not a spouse, I might be eligible for health insurance. I’m looking into this currently.
