After being unemployed since mid-December, I finally got a job last week as an IT project manager with Multnomah County. I’ll be working on a new system for the Juvenile Justice department, which sounds very interesting. Although it is a limited duration position (expected to be 1-2 years), I’ll be coming in as a regular employee with full benefits, which I’m very happy about.
Interestingly, for all that one reads and hears that most jobs are filled through networking, I got this by sending in my resume to a position that I saw posted on line. I found the listing through Indeed.com. Indeed is a site that aggregates job postings from a number of other sites – both other career sites such as Dice and Monster as well as individual company and organizational web sites. It’s very convenient and seems to pick up most of what’s out there. To make a long story short, I submitted an application (which was pretty extensive as it involved answering several essay questions), got called for a screening interview several weeks later, then was brought in for an in-person interview. At that stage, I was one of three finalists. The interview went well, and after they checked references and did a background check, I was offered the position. Of course you never know for sure why you do or don’t get a job, but in this case, I think it was primarily because I have a very strong IT PM background and of all things, because I also have a social work degree, and had some experience working both with adolescents as well as adults who were on parole. They were looking for somebody who had IT experience developing systems related to public safety. Nobody had that, so the fact that I had the social work experience scored points, since a number of the system users are mental health practitioners.
I start Monday, and I’m really looking forward to getting back to work!