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My odd cycle of job satisfaction

BillyOceansEleven — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 16:24:52 +0000

There are ups and downs in every job, and for me it is no different. I had been with my last employer for several years before I got laid off a couple of weeks ago. It isn’t a total tragedy because I was already looking because I was just getting fed up with the BS. That was second employer, and when I think back to why I left my previous job I see a very similar pattern with regards to my phases of job satisfaction. I’m not sure if this is common, but here is my observation from both employers:

Uncertainty – Starting a new job is filled with uncertainty. Will I like the company? Is the job right for me? Will I like the people I work with? There are so many question marks, and for the first few months I try to evaluate the situation.
Acceptance – After a few months, a certain level of comfort sets in. I gain confidence in my ability to do the work, start building friendships with my colleagues, and start feeling like my company is a good place to be.
Enthusiasm – After a while at the same position, my abilities are noticed by those above me and I start getting excellent evaluations, which leads to great salary increases and bonuses. Not too long afterwards I get promoted to the next level, and enthusiasm is running at an all-time high. As odd as it seems, I may stay here for the rest of my career, I think to myself.
Mild disappointment – A few months after the promotion, disappointment starts to settle in. The job isn’t quite what it was made out to be, whether it be that the duties aren’t what I expected or I just find myself doing the same exact things I was doing before the promotion.
Disillusionment – This is the sign I probably won’t last a lot longer. I become completely dissatisfied with the job. I start to believe that there is little reason to believe things will improve in my current position. At this point I start my job search slowly. I find myself quoting the mutterings of Milton from Office Space, “I’ll set the building on fire”, softly under my breath throughout the day. I struggle to pull myself out of bed in the morning to report for work. I start to fantasize about the idea of working for myself so I never have to put up with a crappy 8-5 job ever again, and start quoting the Peter character saying, “I don’t like my job, and I don’t think I’m going to go anymore”. The last time around I found a new position through a friend of mine (and thankfully it was the only job I interviewed for), submitted my two weeks notice, and did a happy dance. This time around, I started the search slowly and then had it kicked into overdrive by a layoff.

Observations from the initial days of the full job search

BillyOceansEleven — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:14:39 +0000

As I mentioned on yesterday’s post, I lost my job to a layoff last Thursday. Although I had already started the search even before I was granted an involuntary vacation, the idea of no longer being employed has an amazing way of motivating you to shift the job search into overdrive. As the search for my first job out of college was facilitated through our career services office and my only other position was a referral through a friend of mine, the real world job search is completely new to me.

Although we are only a few days into the full job search, I have already learned quite a bit. My Friday evening was spent searching Careerbuilder and Monster for relevant job postings, and a good part of my Saturday was spent applying for the positions I found the night before. In the process, I updated my resume on both sites, and apparently on Monster I neglected to set the search preferences to private. So the bullet point list of my lessons learned so far:

If you are in an in-demand field (I am an accountant with experience over the last several years in internal auditing), absolutely do not put your resume in public searchable mode. I posted mine Saturday afternoon and my phone did not stop ringing all day today, not including the numerous emails I received as well. I finally took the resume down Monday afternoon because I couldn’t keep up with all the recruiters that were calling.
Many of the headhunters and recruiters are working the same jobs. Of the many calls I received, a couple asked me if I would be interested in a job I had already interviewed for, which was arranged by yet another recruiter.
Applying for positions posted by a staffing firm is a good way to get access to many different positions without having to apply for all of them separately.
Applications for positions through staffing firms tend to get much quicker responses than applications to positions posted by the companies directly. I guess a recruiter being paid on commission is a lot more motivated than a corporate HR rep being paid a set salary. But ultimately the process is dependent on those corporate HR reps at some point, so don’t expect to get hired overnight.
Track your applications and interactions with recruiters in an Excel spreadsheet. This is good to keep up with recruiter names and what companies you have applied for through which headhunter. It also serves as good evidence of your job search activities if you have applied for unemployment.

I’m sure I will learn a lot more before I eventually get hired somewhere, but I wanted to give everyone a glimpse into my job search odyssey.