Are you looking for a new job? Me too! Maybe you want to do something else but you’re not sure what. Maybe you’re already applying. Maybe you desire a career change, are exploring what industries match your aptitudes and interests, have questions about a certain field, are starting your own business, want a second set of eyes on a cover letter, etc. all timelines and stages welcome! Post your wins and woes, ask for advice, keep track of your tasks—anything goes. Our patron saint is Ask A Manager.
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I’ll start. I’m noodle. For the past 6 years I’ve been working in the for profit sector, dutifully paying off loans and building savings. I even got a free MLIS! The health insurance is real good too, which is great for my current Having Bab(ies?) stage of life. I also do not know how realistic it would be to find a job that pays better. But I’m kind of maxing out on what I can learn.
SO! Decided I’d brush up my resume and start looking around. Going to be super selective. Found one incredible job I’m about 80% qualified for, and it’s less than a 50% pay cut (
) I used this guide and started from scratch. Had a friend with lots of hiring experience review it when I was done. Feeling good! Next up: cover letter
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Awesome!
I’m in! I have 8 years on-paper experience in my field, all at the one company and in several parts of my field. However I also have a gap of 5 years since I did anything (PhD I quit, currently running my own Art & Design business).
I left because I felt like I was doing a shit job and couldnt do anything right anymore. I’m in a much better place mentally/ emotionally and despite deciding I would not get a job until we were 100% done with babies, because my pregnancies are Terrible & prevent me working, I am interested and feeling good about myself. Biggest change was working with a business coach earlier this year, ironically who focuses on creative freelancers not being an employed engineer
I have applied for 2 jobs so far. Rejected for 1 (it was admin job for environmental group). Currently waiting to hear about 2nd, I am qualified but that resume gap may be an issue. And its Government who often like the exact experience, even if the person isnt as good, over someone who can demonstrate their ability to apply skills in different ways.
I think I’m aiming for a job by end of 2024? But no rushing in, because I also have my business and household to run.
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I am not looking for a new job, though I do want to do something else.
I spend time most every week volunteering within my industry, which generally includes reviewing portfolios & resumes and helping people with interview prep/regroups, which I am happy to do here as well. Please note, my own resume is crap and I don’t have a portfolio.
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I’m not looking for a job yet, but I am planning a career change. I’m going to take a minimum of 2 months off prior to applying to anything once I quit. I’ve been working for 18 years and I’m tired and feel like my field (safety) is not a good fit any more. DH is working a ton right now including an on call rotation and it’s a lot. I’m planning to primarily be a SAHM for a bit and taking more of the household duties off his plate. Eventually, I’m hoping for a part time or possibly fullish time job with the school system so that I can have summers off with DS while he’s still at home.
Career Change Success Story
Speaking of DH, he is the most successful career changer I know, so I thought I’d share his story and I know he’d be happy to answer any questions. He has a B.A. and M.S. in political science and was working as a government contractor while trying to get a foot in the door at State Dept or the intelligence agencies. Unfortunately, after 4 years, he had hundreds of applications, multiple rounds of interviews, and no job offers to show for his efforts. He hated his contractor job and decided to switch gears.
At this point we had discovered FIRE and liked the idea of a field that wasn’t so tied to one geographical area. He is naturally skilled with computers and had been spending like 10% of his time as the “IT contact” with his small company. He decided to pursue IT as a career. He got several certifications and started applying with a resume that highlighted the 10% of his experience and also his project management experience. He got a temp-to-hire job that was like 60% of his prior pay. It was a leap of faith, but he took it, and now he is a cloud engineer and makes triple that initial salary.
I have hired for a dozen or so positions and am happy to answer questions from a hiring manager point of view about resumes/cover letters/interviews. Some of my hiring was as a fed so I have some experience with how to get past USAJobs hoops too. I definitely also recommend AAM, her advice is spot on most of the time.
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I think maybe me too? Doing the SAHM thing after two plus years of a not great job fit. At first when I left that I applied for some jobs that were similar to what I just left, then I realized… I didn’t want to. Then short circuited from the existential crisis when I tried to think of what I did want to do.
Right now I’m stalling for a few months ago we can see the reality of what our finances look like on one income, so in January-ish I’ll evaluate what kind of paycheck I need. Maybe none? Maybe non profit low? Maybe more? We’ll see. (On paper it looked fine last summer, it just feels weird sometimes still.)
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Oh, exciting! Have you found the transition to SAHM difficult or fun?
I know lots of people who stayed home when the kids were little, but now most of them have gone back to work in some capacity. I don’t know of anyone IRL who worked while the kids were small and is quitting now. I think my son is a bit older than yours (11) so I am worried I’ll be a bit bored in the winter when he’s at school and I can’t garden or putter around outside.
I think I’m probably going to start out as a lunchroom/recess supervisor at one of the elementary schools when I go back. They work like 2 hours a day and make $20/hr which is not a bad hourly rate! It will fund 529 contributions and pad our budget a bit for our travel habit, but we’ll definitely be relying on DH’s salary for mostly everything. I’m…struggling with that a bit. I out-earned him for nearly all of our marriage and it’s hard to let go of feeling like I need to contribute financially.
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I’ve kept busy, it’s been nice having the flexibility to handle random life stuff that pops up (like my car battery dying last week) without it throwing everything into chaos. I can volunteer at Kiddo’s school and meet with his teachers as we get some stuff ironed out (last year was rough for him). I can drive to the further away grocery place for better prices but they don’t have everything so I end up shopping twice. We’ve also had more time and energy for fun stuff on the weekends. It’s all small things but I really appreciate it.
Plus a full school day and a full time work schedule are laughably different and I’m worried that if I go back it would be some place that makes me go back in person. Commuting? Ew. I’ve gotten spoiled over the past few years.
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Same! I like doing resume reviews and have lots of hiring experience.
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My SIL transitioned to 90% SAHM with older kids. She kept her ND licence and a few telehealth patients - less than 2 h/ week. Ot was great for their family. Way reduced stress, she did a lot of chores and rested and went to her medical appointments while the kids were in school and could be there for them 3-9pm
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We are really hoping my husband can work less when the kids are older, and i will work more. Part time each would be great.
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Boo - no room in #3 Education for people like me with a solid career, but no degree! 
Went to school for Comp. Sci. 97-99. Landed a job building web applications and (due to a variety of reasons) didn’t go back for the second half of my third year of school.
Now have 24 years experience in software. Been at a software agency for a little over 4 years now. Had two longer staffing positions where I was 100% working for a client. Sort of the same client. They were a sort of AIG spin-off startup that was massively funded and they overhired and ultimately they fizzled out, disbanded… and then the core executives came back together and formed a lean startup. Worked for just over 2 years as their swiss army knife data engineer / data warehouse engineer (which I had not done before). But they eventually found and hired a full-time DWE and did not renew my contract.
Past 5 months I’ve been working on oddball “startup” idea projects for clients. In both cases, the projects are at least 5 years old, were never fully baked, and I’m being pulled in to add new features or fix old problems. Over the past few years, our agency has thinned out, and the only project manager left… let’s just say we do not work well together. Overall I feel very discouraged and burned out doing what I’m doing now.
About a month ago or so, a friend from college - we also worked together for over 5 years at a marketing / video / software agency - attempted to recruit me. She got promoted, and her Team Lead / Developer position opened up. Unfortunately, the technical interview didn’t go well enough. As a swiss army knife (who has learned a dozen or more programming languages, though I have over a decade of experience in C# / .NET), my recent .NET and Microsoft SQL Server experience is thin, and they weren’t satisfied by what I could discuss in the 5 minutes we talked about those topics. My recall of specifics wasn’t (isn’t?) great when put on the spot.
It didn’t sound like a dream job, but I liked the idea of working with my friend again, and for having some structure and project management once more. I also find the early days of most jobs stupidly easy because “learning fast on the job” doesn’t seem to be a strong expectation.
I’ve poked very lightly at some LinkedIn jobs, but haven’t found something to seriously pursue just yet.
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Hi all!
Thank you @noodle for starting this, it’s been on my mind a lot!
So, myself and my partner K are both job hunting right now. Being a 0 income household is not working out for us. 
I’ve been out of the workforce for 2 years (medical → disability leave), and K has been out of work since May-ish (also for health problems). So it’s been a rough time, but I’m finally healthy enough that I’m trying to find a job, and I think I actually have a good shot at it!
I’m a software engineer, with a CS degree. Of course everyone is saying right now is the worst job market for tech since the dot-com bust and I don’t think they’re wrong. But there are thankfully a lot of places that are still hiring! Including some that recently had layoffs. 
I’m looking for remote-only roles.
I haven’t interviewed / job searched in about 8 years so I am RUSTY. On top of not working for the last 2. So between that and general interview nerves I think I’ve just been doing so-so in my interviews thus far.
I started interviewing in earnest about a month ago and I’m in final rounds with 3 different companies. Possibly 2 others will advance me to final rounds, we’ll see. SWE jobs for my role tend to be at least 5 hours of interviews/company, and one company wants a whopping 12 hours.
The count so far:
one final round of interviews DONE
one final round of interviews today
one final round scheduled for later this week
0 offers / 0 rejections
Speaking of which…I have to go to an interview (!!) but will try and post more & reply later. 
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I am really good at writing resumes and cover letters and mock-interviewing, etc and am happy to volunteer my skills to forum folks! I am probably best at helping early career and young professionals (first decade of work) vs established professionals. I’m a public library manager and have worked in paraprofessional academia so that is my strongest subject area expertise. Definitely feel free to ping me or direct message if this seems relevant to anyone’s needs.
Good luck with the job searching - I hope you all find fantastic fits! 
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The job I’m applying to is library-adjacent, and my first app after I got my MLIS in '21. Can I message you? 
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Yes, definitely! At the very least I can be a pair of industry-adjacent eyes
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PTF not for me but for Wizard, who was caught up in layoffs in April, spent three months as our full time wedding planner, and has been looking for work since August. He’s starting to consider what a career change might look like.
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Sorry had to throw in a meme 
Related: only pdfs! Whyyyy would you send a Google doc or a word doc.
My former boss replied yesterday and is happy to catch up for coffee. I need him as a reference if i get to that stage with a job.
Its been a week since i applied/ the job listing closed and I’m wondering when is too soon to call.
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Ah yes. References. Remind me–if mine are former employers, I don’t have to alert them, right? They’ll likely only be called for fact checking employment history?
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@noodle oooh very excited for you to be looking at library jobs! That’s really really cool.
I don’t alert employers for fact-checking purposes but I do alert former managers if I’m listing them personally as a reference. Basically the difference is whose phone number am I putting down - if it’s an HR department, I don’t tell them ahead of time, if it’s an individual’s cell phone, I tell them.
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