Sorry man, that sucks you haven't gotten much traction. Can you reach out to the denied place and ask for feedback? That can be humbling but also really good feedback, and maybe give you something to start doing on the side if you can.
Sorry man, that sucks you haven't gotten much traction. Can you reach out to the denied place and ask for feedback? That can be humbling but also really good feedback, and maybe give you something to start doing on the side if you can.
I had thought about contacting them for feedback, but didn't think that was a thing that was done. Also keep in mind that I live in the midwest, smallish city. I've applied for almost every security analyst or related job available to me (which isn't that many). At least those that I think actually fit my qualifications. Discounting the internal workplace job that I was never serious about in the first place, up until this week, I've applied for two jobs, and got two 2nd interviews. When I get discouraged, my RL buddy reminds me that that's a pretty good track record.
If I had to critique my own performance in interviews. My guess would be that I've probably let it slip too much how much I'm frustrated with my current job and that I need to stay more focused on applying for the job in question and not rant about my old job. It's been brought up though every time though by the interviewers because I've worked for my current job so long. They've asked about why I'm looking each time.
There is still another Security Analyst position that haven't even heard back from yet since I only applied almost two weeks ago. and the other two jobs I applied for are the ones that would be more of a lateral move or not specifically security oriented. If I get one of those jobs, I'm still going to keep plugging away at continuing my security career. It's just...I've got to get out of my current job. It's slowly driving me nuts. We keep embracing mediocrity. Our leadership keeps embracing slower, bureaucratic nonsense, despite the fact that we used to do things much faster, less problems, better communication, definitely better security. It's like I'm living in bizarro world. One of our departments is in need of updated software. I told my supervisor that I could do it in a day or two. Denied! "We must do it the proper, approved way" he says. OK, cool, guess we'll be waiting a few weeks at least then. Meanwhile we've got open security vulnerabilities all over the place in that time and we're understaffed horribly. The only thing that keeps me from going completely bonkers is that every coworker I've talked to seems to feel the same way. There have been a mass exodus of workers over the last few years. At first, I thought it was just the baby boomers retiring, but it's slowly becoming people of all ages. Again, since I work for gov't and we've got a very conservative Gov. It seems like to them, everything is perfectly fine, no problem here, just shrinking that evil gov't. Nevermind the wealth of knowledge that keeps leaving and no investment in training.
I'm totally fine with accepting a non-security job at this point as long as the pay is equal or even just slightly better at this point, and since I appear to be transitioning between public to private sector, That..hopefully, shouldn't be so hard. I'm bracing myself for the inevitable culture shock. My aforementioned RL buddy also worked in the same agency as I and recently got a new job in the private sector. He just sent me a picture of the beers he found in the break room fridge. Definitely not something we're used to seeing in the public sector.
I am slowly plugging away at the Network+ cert (thanks again for the book @Radiation!) Due to my experience, it's mostly refresher (yikes, except for IPv6 and subnetting...ugh) and then after that Security+. (and eventually CISSP) again, which should be 80-90 percent refresher. I am so mixed on the idea of certs though. On one hand, I love them, I consider myself a life-long learner so let me at em! On the other hand, I'm exhausted from work, I want to have some semblance of a life, the time alone to study for them is frustrating. The ever increasing cost of just taking them, let alone maintaining them are frustrating. And the gamble of whether or not a potential employer even cares about certs and instead looks at work experience
Yes, do not tell the truth about how you are leaving because you hate the job. Tell them you want new challenges and new skills because you don’t want to stagnate.
When you say you hate the old job, interviewers assume you are a crotchety person who will come to hate your new job as soon as you get settled in enough for it no longer to be new.
Yes, do not tell the truth about how you are leaving because you hate the job. Tell them you want new challenges and new skills because you don’t want to stagnate.
When you say you hate the old job, interviewers assume you are a crotchety person who will come to hate your new job as soon as you get settled in enough for it no longer to be new.
Oh I agree. I admit it's a case of verbal diarrhea. In my first interview, I was better. I only mentioned that I felt that the level of quality of service had dropped and that there was no security commitment under the new leadership and that I felt it was time to move on to something that was better. But yeah, my 2nd interview, I did go off on a small rant.
I think I'm still a bit off guard because I keep expecting interviewers to ask me more about my skills, but almost all the questions are about personality or how do you handle conflicts or what you look for in a supervisor.
It might be more worthwhile to get Sec+ first. Also there are a couple of quiz type apps out that are good to randomly do. I've been using mine (for the Net+ each morning), knocking out say 10 minutes of questions. Then again on lunch if I'm able. And at least once more in the afternoon.
Feedback could be on your interview performance or on your resume.
Also gets you a chance to talk again and they might have some other positions they know of or at least something solid you should be working to accomplish on your resume.
Yes, do not tell the truth about how you are leaving because you hate the job. Tell them you want new challenges and new skills because you don’t want to stagnate.
When you say you hate the old job, interviewers assume you are a crotchety person who will come to hate your new job as soon as you get settled in enough for it no longer to be new.
Oh I agree. I admit it's a case of verbal diarrhea. In my first interview, I was better. I only mentioned that I felt that the level of quality of service had dropped and that there was no security commitment under the new leadership and that I felt it was time to move on to something that was better. But yeah, my 2nd interview, I did go off on a small rant.
Definitely push back when they go digging for this sort of thing - it's an interviewer trap. 'It's not that I want to leave my current job, it's that I'm just SO interested in this one!'
I definitely recommend Net+ and Sec+. With your background, you shouldn't have too much trouble passing both tests (as shittily written as they are). This will get you past the HR side of things. The technical guys won't care up or down as long as you can get with the program, but I find HR is the true enemy when looking for new work of this type. This is especially true if you are continuing to look at Institutional work. I work for "The State," so I totally feel your pain both in your current job and your looking, but when folks in these larger orgs are hiring - they aren't just hiring your skills - they are hiring your future pension calculations and union grievances and employee relationships. It kinda sucks, but it is the cost of getting in.
It’s fine to admit you want to leave your current job. They know that: it’s why you looked at the ad. You just need to stay completely positive. “I’ve heard that your work environment is really great” is better than “The environment at my current job sucks.”
So yeah Got a job offer with a company that makes bank software and provides infrastructure services for banks as one of their network technicians. I'm getting close to finishing all the content of my Network+ training so I'm hoping i'll be ready to take the test before the end of the year so that will come in handy. In fact many of the technical questions I got asked during the interview were straight from Network+ and while I knew them, I wouldn't have remembered them on the spot if it weren't for my recent studying. I think it was the only interview I had that asked more technical questions than personality questions.
Sadly, the pay is about the same, maybe a small sliver of a raise, benefits are about the same, but I will have to say good bye to all those extra state holidays. But hopefully there will be room for growth and hopefully the cost of living raises will keep pace with inflation.
The offer is contingent on a background check, and while I'm quite certain there is nothing to worry about, I'm not submitting my two weeks notice until after that's all cleared. Tentative start date is at the end of the month.
So far so good. Liking my supervisor and my coworkers so far. culture change is still a shock going from public to private. They are way more relaxed in some things, but more restrictive in others. I'd say my only issue thus far is that I'm in that phase where I'm bored because they don't have me doing a lot yet other than basics and just observing. I'm ready to get in there and do more. But I apparently started at a very busy moment so my supervisor just hasn't had the time to do much with me yet. So I've had a lot of time to work on Network+ I finished the course I purchased through TestOut so I just need to go back and review since it took so long to get through since I could only study at home at night. My supervisor did say he wanted me to focus on IPv6 so I've been reviewing the entire IP section of the training and they gave me access to their training library so I've got two different sources which is nice. I knew IPv6 and subnetting would be a weak spot for me, but thanks to this review, I think it finally clicked for me on subnetting so I've been doing well on practice questions in that area (downloaded an app called Subnetting Guru which has been very useful so far in giving me practice) Subnetting is one of those things I did learn back in the Win2000 days but never really put it into practice so I understood the concept, just not the details and the how to's. Didn't help that looking at binary made my eyes glaze over.
I've got a lot of other stuff to review so I suspect I'll be ready to take the exam in maybe a month.
Going to my first company holiday party here in a little bit. Such a change of pace from the anti-fun gov't. Gonna take a while to learn how to un-clench the fist of my previous job.
In a situation just like this, where you feel underutilized, have lots of study time, AND your boss mentioned something they're interested in: Start writing a white paper on it while you study. It doesn't need to be good, but it'll help you retain the info and if, after a couple days, you still feel possibly forgotten about, you can say, "Hey boss, I did that thing you asked." That way they'll know you didn't fuck off the whole time, they might find the briefing useful, and it's an easy way to remind them you exist.
Well...the way that came about was that when I was hired... I dunno how well known this metric is but my previous job used it too (but poorly). They're called S.M.A.R.T goals (I forget what the acronym means) but basically they just assigned me 3 goals to work towards for my first 90 days (which is at the end of this month) One of them was to learn IPv6, At the time, I thought "no problem! IPv6 is part of the Network+ training" Well, when I got to that section of the training, I realized just how little they expect you to know beyond a few core concepts. So last month, I asked my supervisor if he could be more specific what I should be learning about IPv6 and he never really gave me an answer. I eventually gave him a summary of what I learned through Net+ but that I thought it was just the basics and asked if me passing Net+ would be sufficient to meet that IPv6 goal and his eyes kinda lit up and he thought that would be great. So that crosses that off the list. I got the other two goals taken care of earlier so I should be doing good.
That said...I don't know if it counts specifically as a white paper, but I've been keeping extensive notes on the projects and upgrades I've been involved with so far...gawd, especially documenting the third party software we've encountered that is a piece of crap and poorly documented. I used the same method to record all my notes/tips for Net+ training. Used Microsoft OneNote, which I have to admit, I kinda like, though I wouldn't mind finding a less proprietary equivalent in the future. I've emailed excerpts of what I've written to my supervisor as a review of what we're planning in a sort of outline format.
Security+ is probably in my future later on, but right now, I'm taking a well deserved break. I gotta get back to Book 4 of The Expanse and starting the Spiderman PS4 DLC and my physical fitness has suffered greatly these past two years.
New job is still going good. They just seem heavily disorganized without any consistent standard. Part of that though is because of the demands of the various customers. They like to throw me into the deep end with issues I've never encountered before with little or no heads up or training so it's been frustrating in parts because I end up having to ask for help a lot. Which is just surreal for me because it's been a long time since I had to ask for help so often. Been having a lot of flashbacks to the early days of my previous job when I was just getting started in IT.
If you just passed Net+ and plan on Sec+ in the next year or two, consider doing it right away - if you've just done Net+, Sec+ is pretty much that plus a few security basics and a whole boatload of common sense. It's honestly super easy if you didn't find the Net+ too challenging (even moreso with basic industry xp).
If you don't plan on Sec+ very soon, you can always take it 3 years from now for a free re-up to your Net+ (assuming CompTIA continues their mildly infuriating refresh cadence).
I took A+, waited 3 years and took Net+, waited 3 years and took Sec+, keeping all of them fresh without paying CompTIA any more money. When my next refresh comes around, I'll probably just take CYSA+ to refresh them all (if that's still a thing). I'm also told you can pretty much just take a no brainer online course to refresh certs now, too, but I haven't looked into it.
If you just passed Net+ and plan on Sec+ in the next year or two, consider doing it right away - if you've just done Net+, Sec+ is pretty much that plus a few security basics and a whole boatload of common sense. It's honestly super easy if you didn't find the Net+ too challenging (even moreso with basic industry xp).
If you don't plan on Sec+ very soon, you can always take it 3 years from now for a free re-up to your Net+ (assuming CompTIA continues their mildly infuriating refresh cadence).
I took A+, waited 3 years and took Net+, waited 3 years and took Sec+, keeping all of them fresh without paying CompTIA any more money. When my next refresh comes around, I'll probably just take CYSA+ to refresh them all (if that's still a thing). I'm also told you can pretty much just take a no brainer online course to refresh certs now, too, but I haven't looked into it.
Our security manager pretty much said the same thing to me this morning. So while I'm definitely taking a break for at least a couple months, I'm definitely considering it. Gonna offload as much content from the Security+ course I have access to before I drop my Testout subscription (sigh, I was dumb for buying that) My supervisor just told me that our manager is going to consider reimbursing me for a few months of that subscription..so I need to gather me some receipts!
And yeah, I was surfing the comptia site about a month ago trying to understand the continuing education credits thing and what sort of things earn credits and if you don't earn enough credits, you can pay a couple hundred bucks to take an online class and when you complete it, you're refreshed for another 3 years.
The overlap between these Comptia certs is starting to bug me though. I understand why this stuff is important, but I had to memorize so much of the same content for A+ essentials, A+ Technician, and Net+ and yeah, now I'm being told it's the same for Sec+ All the while shelling out hundreds of bucks for each exam, not to mention training materials to train you on the same thing over and over. At least start removing some of the really old stuff. History is important, yes, there is a point. It almost wouldn't shock me if they started requiring understanding the schematics of Turing's bombe at some point for their PenTest cert or something. Just in case Nazis break out the enigma machine again...you never know.
Well, "the cloud" is just mainframes 2.0, and nazis seems to be making a comeback, so enigma 2 isn't too far behind? You might be on to something.
I kid! I kid! Congrats, sincerely, and good luck!
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FiggyFighter of the night manChampion of the sunRegistered Userregular
edited February 2019
SMART is pretty common speak around goals/objectives/etc. The acronym varies a bit depending where you look.
But your supervisor not specifiying exactly what about that topic he wants you to know is pretty much the opposite of a SMART goal. "Specific" is the first letter, then "Measurable", sooooo
SMART is pretty common speak around goals/objectives/etc. The acronym varies a bit depending where you look.
But your supervisor not specifiying exactly what about that topic he wants you to know is pretty much the opposite of a SMART goal. "Specific" is the first letter, then "Measurable", sooooo
Yeah. I'm chalking it up to just a mistake/oversight, because the the other two goals were pretty specific. Still, It was better than my previous job though. Our supervisors had us designate our own goals since they didn't understand what we did all day because they were...worthless. Then they'd reject some of the goals we'd put up and just ask us to make more with no guidance. This is the same place that had adopted Lean Six Sigma, so you know, they made it clear they didn't actually care about things really getting done. just going through the motions and self-congratulation for implementing these "efficient" management schemes that cost more money than they ever saved.
Skimmed through the Security+ content as I was printing the fact sheets to PDF Yep, definitely a lot of overlap, but it wasn't so much about specific technology, but management and just general concepts. A lot of which I've already had exposure to. So yeah, this could be not horrible
Whelp. Back to the drawing board. After a year and three months at this job and just when I was starting to settle in and things were going well, my workplace laid off over 25 of us, myself included. It doesn't appear to be performance related, all of us had been with the company two years or less. I got called into a meeting with no notice Wednesday, see 3 other of my coworkers, also recent hires, but two had been there longer, but not much longer, so right off the bat, I was a bit wary. But then as more and more people filed in, I started to relax, thinking there would be no way they were going to lay off all of us...oops. They pushed us out the door so fast that I didn't have time to finish my timesheet and I forgot a couple personal items so my supervisor emailed me my timesheet to finish and I had to go back the next day to pick up the remainder of my personal items.
Just got my car paid off too so while I still have a decent amount in my account to be fine for a few months, I don't have nearly as much liquidity as I did just a month ago.
Filed for unemployment insurance that night. got my resume updated and I'll be putting in a couple applications tonight.
Still in shock obviously because as far as I knew, the company was doing well, we spent the majority of all last year setting up a ton of new customers and we already had two new customers this year. All of our customers were contracted for multiple years of service so its not like we depended on day to day traffic so I don't think we were canned because of the coronavirus, but I just can't help but think that the layoffs and the virus are no coincidence.
Ran into one of my coworkers who also got laid off at the grocery store yesterday, she thinks that we were targeted because she was only a few days away from her two year anniversary and they would have had to make a bigger vacation payout to her if they had waited much longer. I just had my first anniversary back in November so it was a long while before my next one. To my knowledge they were happy with my work so as far as I can tell, this was just a cleaning house of all the recent hires and nothing against me specifically.
My first layoff. wheee! Part of me definitely views this as a blessing in disguise. While the job was getting easier and easier as time went by, it was very chaotic and haphazard. Every month or so ever since my first anniversary, I started poking around at job openings lightly because I just had the sense that I didn't want to stay there forever because I just felt no sense of security there, that if maybe I just had a bad day and looked at someone the wrong way that I'd be gone. But then again, I remember when I first started my previous job, I thought I would only stay 5 years at most, I ended up being there 20. My supervisor, before I left said that he hoped that this was just temporary and that when they eventually started hiring again that they would reach out to me, but fuck...even if I still happen to be unemployed when that happens, I don't think I would take it. or maybe if they really sweetened the deal to get me back, maybe I would, but not stop the job search you know?
MichaelLCIn what furnace was thy brain?ChicagoRegistered Userregular
Sorry. It always sucks no matter the cause.
The "good" news is that explaining this will be very easy; blame it on the pandemic.
So take a day or two to be upset, then start looking. Reach out to your contacts and let them know you're back in the market.
Update resume with the work you did there, highlighting cost savings or income as a result of your work. "Set up backend SQL server which allowed Company X to win $100k yearly contract " or whatever.
FWIW I would not be surprised if they ask you back later. I'm not saying wait for it, but they could call (or offer the same opening for applicants) after this is done
Yeah, my former supervisor mentioned this possibility twice. and yeah, I'm not waiting for it. Based on how I was treated, I don't think I would take the offer. The job was very chaotic, and while I liked the money and the exposure I was getting, I was already considering a possible exit because the management seemed to be very flaky. The only way I could see going back is if they really sweeten the deal with increased pay or some other perk, but even if such a thing were to occur. I would just milk said deal for whatever it was worth and still find a different job.
If we brought in all those new customers last year and the CEO was still worried for the survival of the company which prompted the layoffs, I'm thinking something else is going on that the CEO isn't telling us about so I'm thinking it's good to be out of there.
I do have an interview lined up already for today and my resume is updated. The job is just for level 2 help desk desktop support, but their starting pay was equal to what I'm making right now so I had to apply. It's not exactly what I want, but at this point, I don't think I care, I just want to be employed again with something hopefully stable this time.
1st one I put in late Sunday night online. The next morning, right at 8am, I get an email from them saying they weren't interested. Wow, that was fast.
2nd one calls me back right away and asks to do an in-person interview in spite of the virus. I show up. They don't. They eventually call me back to let me know that the person doing the interview had to take care of a sick kid. I then also find out that the interview isn't with the company in question, but with the staffing agency. They send me a skills assessment which was really basic and even out of date, but I still do it and send it in. A few days later, the guy who I was supposed to meet with in person calls me up. Asks me to do the skills assessment. I tell him I already did and it should have been sent to him. He can't find it. I re-send it. He then tells me that I've done everything I need to do and he just has to forward it on to the company and they'll set up a real interview. Two weeks go by with no contact. I finally hear back from the first person I spoke with. she leaves me a message saying she's wondering if I'm ok and if I got hit with the virus or something because their status system says my application is "pending" At this point, I don't think I want to go any further with these guys since they seem incompetent and I've moved on to other applications.
3rd application was with a local ISP provider. I thought it might be an interesting job. Unfortunately they aren't able to meet my pay requirements. This was right after I let go so I told them I'd like to be considered anyway because I figure I can't be too picky right now and again, I thought the job might be interesting. 3 weeks later with no contact, I figure they weren't interested. Friday, they send me a notice that I've moved on to the next stage and they sent me a link to a....typing test???? They asked me how fast I could type in the HR phone interview too which seemed odd. That and the job title is listed as a level 1 position, but in the HR interview, they describe it as a level II position, but their keen interest in my typing speed and that they can't meet my pay requirements anyway lead me to believe this job isn't matching up to the description (which is something I've ran into a lot lately..and in my earlier job search a year ago too) So at this point, I think I'm going to remove myself from consideration of that job too.
4th one I applied for two weeks ago, I've had 3 interviews with them and it's looking good so far. It's a little bit of a downgrade in responsibilities but they seem fine with what I'm looking for in pay and it looks like there is room for growth. I think my odds are good, 3rd interview was in-person and was more a tour of the workplace than an interview. the supervisor can't make an offer until their CFO comes back so I'm waiting on that.
But aside from the job search, it seems as part of the stimulus, the feds are kicking in extra money to unemployment insurance, so between that and what my state is going to give me, I'll actually be making money off this and getting more than I would if none of this happened, which is mind blowing to me. There is actually strong incentive to staying unemployed for much longer and milking that fed assistance as much as I could. I don't really wish to do that, I want to get back to it, but just...wow.
EDIT: oh and just for good measure, I wake up this morning and decide to check my bank account to see if maybe they've deposited the stimulus check into my account, I didn't think it was likely, but it only took a moment. I find a bunch of charges that I definitely didn't make. Call up the bank and yay, everything will be reversed, but now my debit card has been cancelled and I have to wait till at least Wednesday for a new one to show.
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Try to brush up your skills with something that looks cool on a resume.
I had thought about contacting them for feedback, but didn't think that was a thing that was done. Also keep in mind that I live in the midwest, smallish city. I've applied for almost every security analyst or related job available to me (which isn't that many). At least those that I think actually fit my qualifications. Discounting the internal workplace job that I was never serious about in the first place, up until this week, I've applied for two jobs, and got two 2nd interviews. When I get discouraged, my RL buddy reminds me that that's a pretty good track record.
If I had to critique my own performance in interviews. My guess would be that I've probably let it slip too much how much I'm frustrated with my current job and that I need to stay more focused on applying for the job in question and not rant about my old job. It's been brought up though every time though by the interviewers because I've worked for my current job so long. They've asked about why I'm looking each time.
There is still another Security Analyst position that haven't even heard back from yet since I only applied almost two weeks ago. and the other two jobs I applied for are the ones that would be more of a lateral move or not specifically security oriented. If I get one of those jobs, I'm still going to keep plugging away at continuing my security career. It's just...I've got to get out of my current job. It's slowly driving me nuts. We keep embracing mediocrity. Our leadership keeps embracing slower, bureaucratic nonsense, despite the fact that we used to do things much faster, less problems, better communication, definitely better security. It's like I'm living in bizarro world. One of our departments is in need of updated software. I told my supervisor that I could do it in a day or two. Denied! "We must do it the proper, approved way" he says. OK, cool, guess we'll be waiting a few weeks at least then. Meanwhile we've got open security vulnerabilities all over the place in that time and we're understaffed horribly. The only thing that keeps me from going completely bonkers is that every coworker I've talked to seems to feel the same way. There have been a mass exodus of workers over the last few years. At first, I thought it was just the baby boomers retiring, but it's slowly becoming people of all ages. Again, since I work for gov't and we've got a very conservative Gov. It seems like to them, everything is perfectly fine, no problem here, just shrinking that evil gov't. Nevermind the wealth of knowledge that keeps leaving and no investment in training.
I'm totally fine with accepting a non-security job at this point as long as the pay is equal or even just slightly better at this point, and since I appear to be transitioning between public to private sector, That..hopefully, shouldn't be so hard. I'm bracing myself for the inevitable culture shock. My aforementioned RL buddy also worked in the same agency as I and recently got a new job in the private sector. He just sent me a picture of the beers he found in the break room fridge. Definitely not something we're used to seeing in the public sector.
I am slowly plugging away at the Network+ cert (thanks again for the book @Radiation!) Due to my experience, it's mostly refresher (yikes, except for IPv6 and subnetting...ugh) and then after that Security+. (and eventually CISSP) again, which should be 80-90 percent refresher. I am so mixed on the idea of certs though. On one hand, I love them, I consider myself a life-long learner so let me at em! On the other hand, I'm exhausted from work, I want to have some semblance of a life, the time alone to study for them is frustrating. The ever increasing cost of just taking them, let alone maintaining them are frustrating. And the gamble of whether or not a potential employer even cares about certs and instead looks at work experience
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When you say you hate the old job, interviewers assume you are a crotchety person who will come to hate your new job as soon as you get settled in enough for it no longer to be new.
Oh I agree. I admit it's a case of verbal diarrhea. In my first interview, I was better. I only mentioned that I felt that the level of quality of service had dropped and that there was no security commitment under the new leadership and that I felt it was time to move on to something that was better. But yeah, my 2nd interview, I did go off on a small rant.
I think I'm still a bit off guard because I keep expecting interviewers to ask me more about my skills, but almost all the questions are about personality or how do you handle conflicts or what you look for in a supervisor.
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Feedback could be on your interview performance or on your resume.
Also gets you a chance to talk again and they might have some other positions they know of or at least something solid you should be working to accomplish on your resume.
Definitely push back when they go digging for this sort of thing - it's an interviewer trap. 'It's not that I want to leave my current job, it's that I'm just SO interested in this one!'
I definitely recommend Net+ and Sec+. With your background, you shouldn't have too much trouble passing both tests (as shittily written as they are). This will get you past the HR side of things. The technical guys won't care up or down as long as you can get with the program, but I find HR is the true enemy when looking for new work of this type. This is especially true if you are continuing to look at Institutional work. I work for "The State," so I totally feel your pain both in your current job and your looking, but when folks in these larger orgs are hiring - they aren't just hiring your skills - they are hiring your future pension calculations and union grievances and employee relationships. It kinda sucks, but it is the cost of getting in.
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Sadly, the pay is about the same, maybe a small sliver of a raise, benefits are about the same, but I will have to say good bye to all those extra state holidays. But hopefully there will be room for growth and hopefully the cost of living raises will keep pace with inflation.
The offer is contingent on a background check, and while I'm quite certain there is nothing to worry about, I'm not submitting my two weeks notice until after that's all cleared. Tentative start date is at the end of the month.
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I've got a lot of other stuff to review so I suspect I'll be ready to take the exam in maybe a month.
Going to my first company holiday party here in a little bit. Such a change of pace from the anti-fun gov't. Gonna take a while to learn how to un-clench the fist of my previous job.
Enlist in Star Citizen! Citizenship must be earned!
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In a situation just like this, where you feel underutilized, have lots of study time, AND your boss mentioned something they're interested in: Start writing a white paper on it while you study. It doesn't need to be good, but it'll help you retain the info and if, after a couple days, you still feel possibly forgotten about, you can say, "Hey boss, I did that thing you asked." That way they'll know you didn't fuck off the whole time, they might find the briefing useful, and it's an easy way to remind them you exist.
That said...I don't know if it counts specifically as a white paper, but I've been keeping extensive notes on the projects and upgrades I've been involved with so far...gawd, especially documenting the third party software we've encountered that is a piece of crap and poorly documented. I used the same method to record all my notes/tips for Net+ training. Used Microsoft OneNote, which I have to admit, I kinda like, though I wouldn't mind finding a less proprietary equivalent in the future. I've emailed excerpts of what I've written to my supervisor as a review of what we're planning in a sort of outline format.
Security+ is probably in my future later on, but right now, I'm taking a well deserved break. I gotta get back to Book 4 of The Expanse and starting the Spiderman PS4 DLC and my physical fitness has suffered greatly these past two years.
New job is still going good. They just seem heavily disorganized without any consistent standard. Part of that though is because of the demands of the various customers. They like to throw me into the deep end with issues I've never encountered before with little or no heads up or training so it's been frustrating in parts because I end up having to ask for help a lot. Which is just surreal for me because it's been a long time since I had to ask for help so often. Been having a lot of flashbacks to the early days of my previous job when I was just getting started in IT.
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If you don't plan on Sec+ very soon, you can always take it 3 years from now for a free re-up to your Net+ (assuming CompTIA continues their mildly infuriating refresh cadence).
I took A+, waited 3 years and took Net+, waited 3 years and took Sec+, keeping all of them fresh without paying CompTIA any more money. When my next refresh comes around, I'll probably just take CYSA+ to refresh them all (if that's still a thing). I'm also told you can pretty much just take a no brainer online course to refresh certs now, too, but I haven't looked into it.
Our security manager pretty much said the same thing to me this morning. So while I'm definitely taking a break for at least a couple months, I'm definitely considering it. Gonna offload as much content from the Security+ course I have access to before I drop my Testout subscription (sigh, I was dumb for buying that) My supervisor just told me that our manager is going to consider reimbursing me for a few months of that subscription..so I need to gather me some receipts!
And yeah, I was surfing the comptia site about a month ago trying to understand the continuing education credits thing and what sort of things earn credits and if you don't earn enough credits, you can pay a couple hundred bucks to take an online class and when you complete it, you're refreshed for another 3 years.
The overlap between these Comptia certs is starting to bug me though. I understand why this stuff is important, but I had to memorize so much of the same content for A+ essentials, A+ Technician, and Net+ and yeah, now I'm being told it's the same for Sec+ All the while shelling out hundreds of bucks for each exam, not to mention training materials to train you on the same thing over and over. At least start removing some of the really old stuff. History is important, yes, there is a point. It almost wouldn't shock me if they started requiring understanding the schematics of Turing's bombe at some point for their PenTest cert or something. Just in case Nazis break out the enigma machine again...you never know.
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I kid! I kid! Congrats, sincerely, and good luck!
But your supervisor not specifiying exactly what about that topic he wants you to know is pretty much the opposite of a SMART goal. "Specific" is the first letter, then "Measurable", sooooo
Yeah. I'm chalking it up to just a mistake/oversight, because the the other two goals were pretty specific. Still, It was better than my previous job though. Our supervisors had us designate our own goals since they didn't understand what we did all day because they were...worthless. Then they'd reject some of the goals we'd put up and just ask us to make more with no guidance. This is the same place that had adopted Lean Six Sigma, so you know, they made it clear they didn't actually care about things really getting done. just going through the motions and self-congratulation for implementing these "efficient" management schemes that cost more money than they ever saved.
Skimmed through the Security+ content as I was printing the fact sheets to PDF Yep, definitely a lot of overlap, but it wasn't so much about specific technology, but management and just general concepts. A lot of which I've already had exposure to. So yeah, this could be not horrible
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Specific
Measurable
Actionable
Realistic
Timely
“Increase sales” is not specific; “double revenue in 6 mos” is usually not realistic, etc.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Just got my car paid off too so while I still have a decent amount in my account to be fine for a few months, I don't have nearly as much liquidity as I did just a month ago.
Filed for unemployment insurance that night. got my resume updated and I'll be putting in a couple applications tonight.
Still in shock obviously because as far as I knew, the company was doing well, we spent the majority of all last year setting up a ton of new customers and we already had two new customers this year. All of our customers were contracted for multiple years of service so its not like we depended on day to day traffic so I don't think we were canned because of the coronavirus, but I just can't help but think that the layoffs and the virus are no coincidence.
Ran into one of my coworkers who also got laid off at the grocery store yesterday, she thinks that we were targeted because she was only a few days away from her two year anniversary and they would have had to make a bigger vacation payout to her if they had waited much longer. I just had my first anniversary back in November so it was a long while before my next one. To my knowledge they were happy with my work so as far as I can tell, this was just a cleaning house of all the recent hires and nothing against me specifically.
My first layoff. wheee! Part of me definitely views this as a blessing in disguise. While the job was getting easier and easier as time went by, it was very chaotic and haphazard. Every month or so ever since my first anniversary, I started poking around at job openings lightly because I just had the sense that I didn't want to stay there forever because I just felt no sense of security there, that if maybe I just had a bad day and looked at someone the wrong way that I'd be gone. But then again, I remember when I first started my previous job, I thought I would only stay 5 years at most, I ended up being there 20. My supervisor, before I left said that he hoped that this was just temporary and that when they eventually started hiring again that they would reach out to me, but fuck...even if I still happen to be unemployed when that happens, I don't think I would take it. or maybe if they really sweetened the deal to get me back, maybe I would, but not stop the job search you know?
just..wow.
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The "good" news is that explaining this will be very easy; blame it on the pandemic.
So take a day or two to be upset, then start looking. Reach out to your contacts and let them know you're back in the market.
Update resume with the work you did there, highlighting cost savings or income as a result of your work. "Set up backend SQL server which allowed Company X to win $100k yearly contract " or whatever.
If we brought in all those new customers last year and the CEO was still worried for the survival of the company which prompted the layoffs, I'm thinking something else is going on that the CEO isn't telling us about so I'm thinking it's good to be out of there.
I do have an interview lined up already for today and my resume is updated. The job is just for level 2 help desk desktop support, but their starting pay was equal to what I'm making right now so I had to apply. It's not exactly what I want, but at this point, I don't think I care, I just want to be employed again with something hopefully stable this time.
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I've put in 4 applications so far...
1st one I put in late Sunday night online. The next morning, right at 8am, I get an email from them saying they weren't interested. Wow, that was fast.
2nd one calls me back right away and asks to do an in-person interview in spite of the virus. I show up. They don't. They eventually call me back to let me know that the person doing the interview had to take care of a sick kid. I then also find out that the interview isn't with the company in question, but with the staffing agency. They send me a skills assessment which was really basic and even out of date, but I still do it and send it in. A few days later, the guy who I was supposed to meet with in person calls me up. Asks me to do the skills assessment. I tell him I already did and it should have been sent to him. He can't find it. I re-send it. He then tells me that I've done everything I need to do and he just has to forward it on to the company and they'll set up a real interview. Two weeks go by with no contact. I finally hear back from the first person I spoke with. she leaves me a message saying she's wondering if I'm ok and if I got hit with the virus or something because their status system says my application is "pending" At this point, I don't think I want to go any further with these guys since they seem incompetent and I've moved on to other applications.
3rd application was with a local ISP provider. I thought it might be an interesting job. Unfortunately they aren't able to meet my pay requirements. This was right after I let go so I told them I'd like to be considered anyway because I figure I can't be too picky right now and again, I thought the job might be interesting. 3 weeks later with no contact, I figure they weren't interested. Friday, they send me a notice that I've moved on to the next stage and they sent me a link to a....typing test???? They asked me how fast I could type in the HR phone interview too which seemed odd. That and the job title is listed as a level 1 position, but in the HR interview, they describe it as a level II position, but their keen interest in my typing speed and that they can't meet my pay requirements anyway lead me to believe this job isn't matching up to the description (which is something I've ran into a lot lately..and in my earlier job search a year ago too) So at this point, I think I'm going to remove myself from consideration of that job too.
4th one I applied for two weeks ago, I've had 3 interviews with them and it's looking good so far. It's a little bit of a downgrade in responsibilities but they seem fine with what I'm looking for in pay and it looks like there is room for growth. I think my odds are good, 3rd interview was in-person and was more a tour of the workplace than an interview. the supervisor can't make an offer until their CFO comes back so I'm waiting on that.
But aside from the job search, it seems as part of the stimulus, the feds are kicking in extra money to unemployment insurance, so between that and what my state is going to give me, I'll actually be making money off this and getting more than I would if none of this happened, which is mind blowing to me. There is actually strong incentive to staying unemployed for much longer and milking that fed assistance as much as I could. I don't really wish to do that, I want to get back to it, but just...wow.
EDIT: oh and just for good measure, I wake up this morning and decide to check my bank account to see if maybe they've deposited the stimulus check into my account, I didn't think it was likely, but it only took a moment. I find a bunch of charges that I definitely didn't make. Call up the bank and yay, everything will be reversed, but now my debit card has been cancelled and I have to wait till at least Wednesday for a new one to show.
whee!
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