Back To Work

I go back to work, this time as a Project Manager for a nationally known retail operation based in Hoffman Estates, IL. I'll probably start on Wednesday or Thursday, but fully expect the the start date to push to next Monday. Hiring managers at this place have a lot to do to bring in a new contractor. This will be my third go round and this may be the charm.

With an unprecedented positive recommendation from a previous IT manager, the new boss was pretty well convinced he'd hired me before I came in for the face to face interview. That's what the recruiter said. This time he was right.

That was amazing. Thanks Nancy!

As usual, it took less than a day to get confirmation for the contract. Every job I've ever gotten resulted in the offer or confirmation taking hours instead of days. Once or twice it took as long as two days- but never any longer. In the latest round of interviews and waiting for the rejection phone call, e-mail or letter, I think offers were extended to other people (when I made it that far) and I was the 'back-up.' Of course, I may think too much of myself.It just might be I'm too old, made too much money or a combination of the three.

The new contract's supposed to run 4-6 months. In the interview, my new boss listed the projects his team will have to handle in the next 12-24 months. I believe he was telling me there's a perm gig in it for me, if I don't step on my....er....keep my nose clean. The recruiter thinks the same.

I had no idea Loyalty Programs could keep that many folks employed for that many projects over that length of time.

Thank Goodness for Marketing. Yeah, you heard me.

The journalist in me cringes when I say that because I've seen marketing and PR communications bombarding the newsrooms I managed.

Since then, I've worked three or four marketing projects and as visionary, pie in the sky and wishful thinking as these folks tend to be, the checks don't bounce and I learned the application isn't mine. It's theirs.

I'm an IT Project Manager now, pretty cool, hunh?

I gotta keep studying for my Microsoft Project and PMI PMP credentials or I'll lose access to the on-line question bank. I've found that pretty good for study.

It'll take a little while to get used to getting up at a reasonable hour more than once a week. So, I'm thinking I'll read and test in the evenings and maybe 8-10 hours a day on the weekend until I'm ready. I hope the new place will give me time off to take the tests. If I was smarter, i would have done all of this over the last 3-4 weeks.But I'm not and job hunting was a much higher priority.

As one Blog Commenter told me, Good. Maybe now you'll quick all that whining.

Probably. But if you've been looking for work over the last two years and know your elbow from your foot, you know I didn't exaggerate anything. And writing this blog with all the rants helped keep me sane. That and the Wellbutrin, Xanex and my wife.

But that's over, hopefully for a while- worst case for 4-6 months.

I hope to have some non-proprietary detail on how small teams in a huge IT arena handle development, project management and some generic info on Loyalty Programs. I've dome them on the BA side, so the PM side ought to be very interesting.

Thanks for sticking with me on this drive to be productive and back to work!

Taking Advantage of BAs Because They Can

There are a lot of BAs who were working (and deserved) low six figure pay before Wall Street idiots did what they did. Most of us worked as consultants because that's where the cash was. Now we're seeing:

• Ridiculous job requirements/software backgrounds in areas other than Health Care, Insurance and Financial- those I can understand- specialized domain knowledge. But database cleaners? Portals? (everyone seems to be moving to SharePoint and this seems to be a real big deal requiring years of experience with the tool- right- you're telling people who can create custom Portals with dozens of interfaces and multiple layers with extensive User Profile functionality doesn't directly relate? Balderdash)l E-Commerce or Basic Business Intelligence? Gimme a break.

• 10+ Years of Experience: Who are these people? There wasn't any such thing as an IT BA in 1999, the concept was just starting to spread with the use of requirements documents (Use Cases). BAs back then were what we tend to call Financial or 'Real' BAs today- the ones who can look at market data and prepare forecasts and other magic stuff accountants and actuaries do. But can they describe how their PC is supposed to connect and how the User is suppose to work the actuary engines?
  

• Demand 6 months or less since the last job: I got a call from a recruiter yesterday- "Scot the job's a perfect fit with your background- what have you been doing since October 2008?" I said, "Looking for work." The recruiter said he was sorry, but the longest gap this company would accept is six months. I laughed, silently (yuh never know if the recruiter might do you some good later). I told him to tell the company I was researching and writing a book: How BAs Fit in the Agile Method. No dice. Well, Dice.com, but not for this job. I figure they lost a tremendous resource. Me.

• Demanding Salary Requirements or Back Salary Levels: I used to make a lot of money- at least as far as most of Chicago's Companies are concerned. They want all the ridiculous requirements and pay $20-$30 per hour. Now, I know I'm going to have to take a salary hit, but these HR people are filtering people out for high pay because they think higher paid people will leave when the economy straightens out. Um, genius, why wouldn't you want a bargain between now and then? If it were me, I'd hire the person, knowing that as long as salaries were low, I was getting a bargain and work the bejesus out of me then shake hands like a mench at the end. Nope- they'll hire a lesser experienced or newly minted BA instead. Is it any wonder some of these companies are in trouble??? I put either $5/year in the field (freakin' developers made the fields number text since my last job search) or leave it blank if I can. Mebbe I can tell them I'd take $45/hour with a smile and a sigh of relief and you'd have a friend for life.

And the silly HR keyword searches, uploading resumes created in Word and the parser screwing every little thing up. I'm sorry the HR people are being inundated- but they are filtering out some great people with superb skills and extensive experience. 350 resumes for a single position? When I was looking for people I would have killed for those numbers so I could get the best person I could.

And the Hiring Managers? Please. Why would you search for a new resource without the gig budgeted and approved? Why are you asking me questions that have absolutely not relevance to what you said the job was all about on the phone? Manhole covers? Why are you wasting your time and mine? I had to pay cash money to come here and talk to you- money I don't have because I make all of $317 a week unemployment.

You can't blame all of this on the economy. A friend and fellow BA twittered this: Why are there so many idiots working and so many really good people looking for work?

The system's broke. We need to fix it.

Powered by ScribeFire.