The winds of change blow faster than I expected

In light of the announcement made by my employer last week, I figured I would throw up my resume on a few job sites and see if I received any offers while continuing to work through the end of the year with my current employer. My length of service with the company meant that I had plenty of experience and knowledge that could still be put to good use before my department shuts down locally, and the bonus and severance package would be a nice fallback padding for me to use when looking for new employment after the first of the year.

Ha, little did I realize that real life never works out exactly as you plan--sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse. In my case it seems, for once, that it's actually for the better. Every day since the posting of my resume, I have received multiple serious inquiries from both staffing agencies and direct-hire employers. A few were thoroughly out of my league in qualifications, which makes me wonder how closely some of these people actually read my resume. A few others came from out of town, such as one about 30-45 minutes south of Phoenix in Florence (I don't know of anything down there except the prison) and even one in Connecticut.

The benefit of having the extended length of time to find a new position is that I relax for a while and be picky about what I choose. I've had to turn down a few offers because benefits would not start soon enough or just plain sucked, and I definitely need at least the medical coverage with a 3-year-old at home. Others I've had to refuse because either the drive was too far from home and others because they had a strictly fixed schedule which I'm not comfortable being down to with my daughter primarily living with me now.

So that leaves me with a trio of prospective positions right now that would fit the bill. One of the three might pan out to be a fantastic future opportunity for which I would love to help develop, but for reasons I cannot discuss, it's not a viable option at the moment. The second one is with a prominent company downtown that would almost double my current salary. They sound willing to train me in areas in which I am weak (like C#) and are apparently excited to contact me despite the fact that their current allotment of interview slots were filled up. I am waiting to hear back from them when I can visit with their hiring manager to discuss the position more and take a tour to find out what it would be like to work with them. The final opportunity I received this morning is from a recruiter located somewhere in a 512 area code that has a position in Gilbert that sounds like almost a perfect match for my skills. I'm also waiting to hear back on a possible interview for that one after emailing my resume to the staffing agency this morning.

I'm also hoping in the next few weeks to finally be at a level at which I feel comfortable and prepared enough to take a Microsoft certification and make myself even more valuable to any future employers. Every night, I take a half hour to an hour and study after Kaylee has gone to bed. I was always raised with the ideal "never stop learning" and I've tried my best to do that through my whole life. Now it looks like it's all going to finally pay off.

I hate to sound like I'm bragging, but I do feel very proud to be "in demand" by employers and see all of my time and various experience hasn't been a waste. Life seems to want to move ahead a little bit faster than I had planned, but it doesn't seem like a bad thing for me. So, here's to change.