Careerchat IV

[A True Kaniggit]

17 minutes ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Just as bad as people who misuse “reply all”

 

aaaaaugh

Hahahaha!

This happened a couple weeks ago for a message from Human Resources.

Someone replied how they wanted to handle their extra PTO hours to 100+ people.

 

[Iskaral Pust]

I’m hiring for two open positions on my team.  It seems like a really hot job market currently but we’re still getting great receptivity from anyone out recruiting team contacts.  We don’t post most jobs publicly.

These past few months we’ve seen quite a few people across the firm depart for COVID-prompted reasons like childcare, family relocation away from the NE and just taking a completely different career path to chase a passion project.

[Chataya de Fleury]

9 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I’m hiring for two open positions on my team.  It seems like a really hot job market currently but we’re still getting great receptivity from anyone out recruiting team contacts.  We don’t post most jobs publicly.

These past few months we’ve seen quite a few people across the firm depart for COVID-prompted reasons like childcare, family relocation away from the NE and just taking a completely different career path to chase a passion project.

It’s a hot af job market. We’ve had four people bail on offers $230k and up. Like “oh, I got a counteroffer to double that” or “yeah….I accepted your offer, but A Very Dark Stone Company came in at $500k and they said I don’t have to move to NYC for two years and can work remotely.”

I'm working 90 hours a week and we are incredibly understaffed. 

It’s insane.

[RhaenysBee]

Oh goodness. Anybody ever feel like you just want to quit and rescue puppies, or open a pie shop or become a gardener? Or just retrain to become an assistant conservationist or archeologist or anything to stop the flood of corporate bullshit drowning your brains?

[Iskaral Pust]

21 minutes ago, RhaenysBee said:

Oh goodness. Anybody ever feel like you just want to quit and rescue puppies, or open a pie shop or become a gardener? Or just retrain to become an assistant conservationist or archeologist or anything to stop the flood of corporate bullshit drowning your brains?

One of our reasonably senior guys quit to focus full time on his film production side project.  Some junior people decided to move to California or Colorado with vague notions of new careers, and then landed in fintech anyway once they realized that other careers would pay.  

That’s probably our biggest shift: a few people drifting into fintech or crypto because it’s more of a Wild West and they hadn’t made it particularly big in plain ol’ asset management so far.  Chaos is a ladder.

[A True Kaniggit]

In one month I hit my one year anniversary at this place and am taking 10 straight days off to celebrate it.

From Tuesday to the Thursday after.

 

I will work the Monday before leaving to try and make things as easy as possible for the people covering for me. And then I work the Friday I get back to try and fix things.

(I also avoid the insane weekend plane ticket prices)

Friggin Jean Yes.

 

[Underfoot]

10 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

Oh goodness. Anybody ever feel like you just want to quit and rescue puppies, or open a pie shop or become a gardener? Or just retrain to become an assistant conservationist or archeologist or anything to stop the flood of corporate bullshit drowning your brains?

Every. Single. Day. 

[Jaxom 1974]

20 hours ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

It’s a hot af job market. We’ve had four people bail on offers $230k and up. Like “oh, I got a counteroffer to double that” or “yeah….I accepted your offer, but A Very Dark Stone Company came in at $500k and they said I don’t have to move to NYC for two years and can work remotely.”

I'm working 90 hours a week and we are incredibly understaffed. 

It’s insane.

This feels extremely relative. 

It is not as hot in the service sector I'm in.  Particularly as everyone seems to need management, but the pay is not reflective of the need.  Particularly going into a new situation where those on the front lines are non existent. 

I'm absolutely in the market for a move and I'm lamenting that virtually everything I know is stuck in the dining services sector.  In light of the current situation, I'm absolutely ready to get put of the University Sector, at least the side I'm in.  I had a really great interview about 10 days ago with a local hotel that is looking for a F&B Director. Despite the fact that that they're slow walking their F&B reopen post covid (none of their furloughed employees wished to return and they're struggling, as is everyone, to fill those slots), if the pay scale is in any way close to what I need, I will jump.  11 years with my current company and it feels like they've done everything they can to do things wrong, specifically at my current account...

Today was day one of at least a minimum of 21 in a row, in which I will have to skip a wedding I'd committed to attend, my daughter's birthday party, my son's sixth grade orientation, and a couple other things.  

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Honestly the job market is insane (anyone know any junior tax lawyers who want to work in M&A at a big firm for someone who is only slightly more crazy than the average tax person (I.e., me)?). And on the other front I get recruiter calls at least daily to try to get me to lateral (most of them can’t pay me CLOSE to enough).  I’ve decided what I really should do is start my Luxury Yurt business and take it public via SPAC.  Seems like it would work, right?

[mcbigski]

2 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

In one month I hit my one year anniversary at this place and am taking 10 straight days off to celebrate it.

From Tuesday to the Thursday after.

I expect frequent updates to the Drunk Thread.

As for my career, I'm plugging along.  20 years in and still haven't met with a recruiter.  But my income is based on relationships with my existing client base, not some sort of salary, and changing seems like a right pain in the ass without way more upside.  

I remember someone saying that you can't double the hours you work and double your income (I think it was Don Connelly from Putnam Investments for anyone on the retail investment side, he's got so much great stuff regardless of this point) but that's probably not the case for me over the medium term or longer.  I recall one of my managers talking about the Pareto principal / 80 20 rule, and I told him the next day that he shouldn't talk to us like that if he wants to hit his own numbers, because I'm willing to take 64% of the income for 4% of the work, running that twice.  And if I don't like working with someone, I don't.

On the other hand, I'm not burned out at all, have plenty of time for my clients when they have something come up, and look well preserved for my advancing age.  Realized the other day that I straight up remember shit that happened 40 years ago. 

[Chataya de Fleury]

2 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Honestly the job market is insane (anyone know any junior tax lawyers who want to work in M&A at a big firm for someone who is only slightly more crazy than the average tax person (I.e., me)?). And on the other front I get recruiter calls at least daily to try to get me to lateral (most of them can’t pay me CLOSE to enough).  I’ve decided what I really should do is start my Luxury Yurt business and take it public via SPAC.  Seems like it would work, right?

Dude, I’m on it.

CHATS-ZABS LUXURY YURT SPAC

[Datepalm]

One of my cohort-colleagues just texted a slightly suspect hey-what's-up asking if I was going on the job market this year (we're friendly, but not like regular-check-in close.) I had toyed with it briefly, but settled on thinking its too early - we've got another 2 years what with COVID. He's doing it though, and now I wonder if I should after all...we work in very different settings, but I think we have roughly similar profiles on a quantitative level, re publications, grants, work experience, etc. He's got his act together on this stuff and a practice year is probably a pre-requisite at this point, so I'm guessing its the right move...Argh the job market is so much bloody work.

I'm trying to move back to Berkeley for about 2-3 months in the Fall (teaching assistant+need to show my face after 18 months) and I want to die. I forgot what a bad mix of eccentric and expensive that housing market is. I'll take one my two fellowship semesters from December and figure out where a better place to spend it vis a vis research and work for the Very Large Organization is, at some point, but should spend a bit of time where I'm supposedly living first.

 

 

 

[kairparavel]

18 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

Honestly the job market is insane (anyone know any junior tax lawyers who want to work in M&A at a big firm for someone who is only slightly more crazy than the average tax person (I.e., me)?). And on the other front I get recruiter calls at least daily to try to get me to lateral (most of them can’t pay me CLOSE to enough).  I’ve decided what I really should do is start my Luxury Yurt business and take it public via SPAC.  Seems like it would work, right?

Rooting for you. 

http://www.collectiveretreats.com/

[BLU-RAY]

On 8/11/2021 at 1:51 AM, Datepalm said:

One of my cohort-colleagues just texted a slightly suspect hey-what's-up asking if I was going on the job market this year (we're friendly, but not like regular-check-in close.) I had toyed with it briefly, but settled on thinking its too early - we've got another 2 years what with COVID. He's doing it though, and now I wonder if I should after all...we work in very different settings, but I think we have roughly similar profiles on a quantitative level, re publications, grants, work experience, etc. He's got his act together on this stuff and a practice year is probably a pre-requisite at this point, so I'm guessing its the right move...Argh the job market is so much bloody work.

I'm trying to move back to Berkeley for about 2-3 months in the Fall (teaching assistant+need to show my face after 18 months) and I want to die. I forgot what a bad mix of eccentric and expensive that housing market is. I'll take one my two fellowship semesters from December and figure out where a better place to spend it vis a vis research and work for the Very Large Organization is, at some point, but should spend a bit of time where I'm supposedly living first.

 

 

 

Housing in the Bay feels like a practical joke most days, but at least Berkeley has some character as a town? Or it did a decade ago? But yeah, actually finding a place is miserable, Feb/March this past year was in some ways the worst of the pandemic for me just because I was apartment hunting... for a place closer to our new office (to tie it in the the theoretical point of the thread).

[Deedles]

Interview on Wednesday for a Head of role. This is the first external interview I’ve had in 16 years and I’m thrown. It was only set up today after 5pm - but as CEO and head of sales, can see how co ordinating schedules is tricky. I have very little prep done. Any last minute tips? What is the etiquette for remote interviews?

[S John]

2 hours ago, Deedles said:

Interview on Wednesday for a Head of role. This is the first external interview I’ve had in 16 years and I’m thrown. It was only set up today after 5pm - but as CEO and head of sales, can see how co ordinating schedules is tricky. I have very little prep done. Any last minute tips? What is the etiquette for remote interviews?

On short notice I would: 

- write out a short summary of your experience for your own benefit. Just so you are in the right headspace and have made note ahead of time of the key things you want to convey about yourself.

- prepare yourself on some of the standard interview questions. I have been tripped up before on the ‘bullshit’ standard questions that come up in interviews just because I did not prep for them thinking that I’d reached a point of experience where the interview would just be nuts and bolts stuff. I’ve had interviews that were strictly skills and experience based, but more often than not someone will throw in a ‘where do you see yourself in five years’ or a ‘how would you resolve a workplace conflict’ type question.

- remote interviews give you a key advantage - IMO. You can have your stock answers and key points lined up on notes or on your monitor. You don’t want to be too obvious that you are reading from them but you could have a doc right there to keep you on track, make sure you hit what you want to hit, and have stock answers to some of the questions you are anticipating. It’s like an open book test.

[Iskaral Pust]

3 hours ago, Deedles said:

Interview on Wednesday for a Head of role. This is the first external interview I’ve had in 16 years and I’m thrown. It was only set up today after 5pm - but as CEO and head of sales, can see how co ordinating schedules is tricky. I have very little prep done. Any last minute tips? What is the etiquette for remote interviews?

Good suggestions by @S John

If you’re going for a head-of role then make sure you speak at a strategic level.  Ask the CEO what are his/her objectives.  Describe the trade-offs you expect to face in pursuing those.  Describe how you would design a function to achieve those (not how you do it), and how it interacts with other functions.  Ask how much scope you have to make changes (make some demands of the CEO).  Describe org models that could be appropriate.  Discuss outcomes in terms of RoI and progress over 3-5 years.  Discuss staff development.

It’s good to show that your experience means you are bringing new knowledge to them and a new perspective.  But don’t list off what you’ve done, instead reflect on what your experience taught you about how to design better or recognize traps for the unwary.

If that all sounds really obvious already, then you’ll do just fine.  Best of luck. 
 

Edit: I would walk into that meeting with a sketch of a business plan to pitch.

[Chataya de Fleury]

Right now I would answer a “where do you see yourself in 5 years” question with, “In 2015, had you asked me that, I would have had an absolute answer. I believe the past 18 months have taught us quite a bit about feelings of certainty around this matter.”

Its the bs question I hate most, and I haven’t asked it to anyone since 2019.

Right now, my question is “do you have a pulse?”

[Isis]

On 8/23/2021 at 11:08 PM, Deedles said:

Interview on Wednesday for a Head of role. This is the first external interview I’ve had in 16 years and I’m thrown. It was only set up today after 5pm - but as CEO and head of sales, can see how co ordinating schedules is tricky. I have very little prep done. Any last minute tips? What is the etiquette for remote interviews?

Good luck/how did it go? 

I'm submitting an application today for a more senior role in the NHS (I currently work in an independent public health lab). It's the grade/role above my current post but I meet the person spec and have years of experience. The ad explicitly states that experienced senior scientists (like me) are welcome to apply. I have another similar post to apply for next week. 

I haven't applied/interviewed in 20 years. Preparing to leave my current workplace is like the end of a marriage, processing lots of strong emotions. 

Yesterday I bumped into a friend who's recently changed jobs and as part of their new role has done 35 interviews in the past few months. They said 'you'll never be appreciated where you are now. It's been 20 years, how long will you wait for it?'. Sound advice. 

[Deedles]

Was ok. CEO had to bail, so ended up a 45 minute convo between me and coo. Felt very weird putting myself out there, but definitely glad I’m doing it. I’m delighted you are too