Well since I have your attention...

Welcome to my blog. I’m going to leave this posting up for a few days as I’m hoping for some "job action." You got here (if you’re reading this on Wednesday August 20th, 2008) courtesy of HARO and want to know more about me. I’d suggest that you read through the blog postings for more details, but I’ll give you a summary here:

I’m under employed and looking for a better job. My goal is not necessarily for a specific position, but one that will best fit my needs and skill sets. However my preference is within these ideas (however if you think I can be of use to your organization, please let me know!):

• Finance/Investment/Banking;
• Marketing (as it relates to smaller growth companies);
• Employment with a young company that need a more senior person that can hit the ground running to manage projects;
• IT/Project Management on the e-commerce/wealth management side;

I’m not trying to be elusive by not stating that I want a job doing "X", my thought process and job desires are not like that. Whatever I'm doing needs to feed me in a different manner. I like educating/helping people; I want to use my planning and technical skills; I seem to be good at marketing and want to continue to expand those skills; I want to be encouraged and excited about what a company is doing. In the past I've found these roles in the financial services sector (I've been investing since age 13) and striking out on my own. My goal is to find a position that can take advantage of all/most of what I’m mentioned here:

• Member of the PMI (working towards my PMP)
• Over 10 years of PM experience
• Investment and Banking experience
• Created E-Commerce/Wealth Management Systems
• Good Marketing skills
• Creative and Entrepreneurial

If you know of a position that you would meet my needs (read through my posts and you’ll get a better idea) please let me know. I’d me more than happy to send out my resume to you. Check my profile for contact information and yes I would consider working internationally.

Bye now, going for a run.

Will it sink or will it float?

So I had this flash of an idea (not one of those ideas that I can sometimes track back the thought process) about my quest for a job.

I’ve been somewhat specific with the jobs that I’ve been applying to. I know there are other jobs that I’m qualified for and would be hired, but I’m through with being an employee in a job that I’m not excited about! There are other jobs out there that I’m sure would be a good fit for me, but I think I need a fresh pair of eyes to help me see them.

So here’s the idea. I’ve heard of people taking out a billboard ad, newspaper ads, standing outside with a sandwich board handing out 479 resumes. I’m placing my own ad, but not just anywhere! There is a PR Master by the name of Peter Shankman with an email list - HARO, Help A Reporter Out. Basically Reporters use Peter’s list to find people to interview about specific topics. I highly recommend his service - http://www.helpareporter.com/

Recently he’s started to accept advertisements (see what I’m getting at) so I’ve asked him to post an ad stating that I’m looking for work. I’ve given him free range to create the spot for me, so I’ll see what happens. The posting is going out tomorrow and while I don’t expect a torrent of job offers, I’m hoping that it will give me a boost and open up some doors that I haven’t seen yet.

So according to Google Maps I went 37.6km, not too bad for a 90 minute ride, 25km/h (a wee bit under 17 miles/h). Will do a run tomorrow.

The Work I've Been Doing

I’m working for a small family owned company with less than a dozen employees. My role here is very simple, he kind of needed a jack of all computer trades and a lot of marketing help. The website has been completely revamped with a database driving most of the functions. I’m now developing some basic applications to keep track of his inventory and to record specific information on incoming products.

There are now over 5000 people registered with an email service and they are getting regular updates about functions and company on-goings. A few times a week I hear of new and repeat customers coming in and commenting how they were responding to information that was emailed to them.

On the PR front, I’ve got the owner appearing on two local TV shows this week and interviews with four newspapers (two local and two national). He’s quite happy with the attention and I’m sure that it’ll translate into additional business.

He realizes that I’m doing the work for the money and he knows that he’s getting more than I’m worth, but it’s all that he can really afford to do at this time. I’m told him that if I were to leave, that I would still provide him with support as long as he needs it (and he really does!) I’d never leave him high and dry.

I was out for a 90 minute yesterday. Got to start keeping track of my distance. I'll see what I can caluclate with Google Maps.

Resumes

It’s been over a week since I’ve seen any decent job postings. There are good jobs out there, don’t get me wrong, just nothing that seems inspiring. The job that I have almost meets my needs and financial obligations, but I’m thankful to have it.

I’m really looking forward to sinking my teeth in to a real good position. They do occasionally come up, I just need to be patient for them to come around. I fine tune my resume for each position that I apply, and highlight the skills/experiences that are required for that job.

What is the school of thought on resumes now? Not too long ago, a one page resume was what you should have. I could never do justice to the work that I’ve done with just one page or give any decent idea to people about my experiences.

My resume is in sections, each section covers one major skill set, one section for Project Management, another for Wealth Management and so on. I’ll piece together the relevant sections and if needed prioritize the information in each section according to the job requirements. It’s somewhat of a functional resume with relevant information in chronological order.

With any luck I’m not boring you with my resume logic. Going for a bike ride now.

Did The Job Fit My Attributes/Skills, Or Did My Attributes/Skills Fit The Job?

I got an interesting question from someone that I interviewed with recently.

"...your experience is high on the finance side- is that something you would to stay active in or are you ready to move out of that industry and type of work?"

Hummm, I never really thought of "moving out" of that industry. Here’s my somewhat long winded response.

One aspect that I liked about my various roles in the finance area was that they all had a high degree of independence. As a stockbroker you were responsible for most everything you did. While doing project management at my own company, I prospected within the investment industry because I could easily understand their needs. At the Bank I was in a small group that had significant autonomy which was not found elsewhere at the bank. Smaller companies allow for greater independence.

I can see why people could see my focus being with in the financial industry. It has been there because of personal interest. However, the various roles fed my desire working for myself and educating others. As a stockbroker I educated people about investing; with projects for my own company, I educated people about the internet and benefits of integrating back offices; with the Tea Co, it was educating people about tastes, health benefits, mixing blends, etc.

Also with my Tea Co, I managed to hone various entrepreneurial skills such as marketing and business planning. I started to help my friends' businesses with planning and to increase their media exposure.

So to finally answer the question, it does not matter if the job that I get is within the financial area or not. Whatever I'm doing needs to feed me in a different manner. I like educating/helping people; I want to use my planning and technical skills; I seem to be good at marketing and want to continue to expand those skills; I want to be encouraged and excited about what a company is doing. In the past I've found these roles in the financial services sector and striking out on my own. Your position seems to fit my criteria and has piqued my interest.

Money vs. Cool

I got an email from a recruiter that I’ve been casually working with for job hunting. There’s a decent position in the east end of Toronto, but I’m wondering if it would be worth my while. Most of this mental discussion will be moot, if I don’t get an interview, but still it’s a worthwhile exercise.

The job is good, not bouncing of the wall exciting, but something that I would enjoy in the investment industry. The pay is a bit on my low end, but more than acceptable. The thing is that I keep on comparing it to this Entrepreneurial job.

The Entrepreneurial Job pay is nowhere near what I should be earning, but it offers some unique benefits. First off it allows be to work with other entrepreneurs, something that I enjoy. I can make use of the marketing strategies that I’ve learned in the past few years to bring attention to new businesses. I can pass on the knowledge that I’ve gained on the IT side and business side to others for their own benefit. Overall, it is a position that really excites me and would be really fun to do. But the pay...it’s more than I’m earning now, so I know I’ll be keeping my head above water. On the financial plus side for the Entrepreneurial job, they are willing to talk profit sharing.

The East End job pays about 100% more than the Entrepreneurial job. There is also the potential for an annual bonus for East End around 10%. I have no idea of what the profit sharing arrangements could be, but there is big upside potential for the Entrepreneurial work (and so long as the profit sharing arrangement is defined and favourable.)

It’s difficult to make a decision. I’m favouring the Entrepreneurial position only because I’ve had an interview with them and the position sounds really great. If I get an interview with the other company I can be more objective.

Not One But Two Cool And Almost Exactly The Same Positions

So I had an interview with a company on Monday that is starting up a website for entrepreneurs. The idea is that they will help them with a one year plan to take the business to the "next level". The interview was great and the business owner and I had a good conversation.

It would require commuting to Toronto, but I’ve done it before.

So just this morning I did my regular job search and what do I find? Another company in Toronto who is hiring for almost the same position with the same business model in mind! How every unusual. I’ll send off an inquiry, sounds good.

On the other sites (monster.com; procom.ca; wowjobs.ca) there’s just the usual suspects of PM roles, noting that really sparks my interest. I may have to lower my expectations of the "awesome, cool, fun" job to a more realistic, "job job", but not just yet. I’ve got one decent idea to get some job leads, but it won’t happen for about a week.

The more that I think about the website for entrepreneurs, the more I like the idea. When I was "younger" I had many business outlines written down. I had one for a mail order business (before the internet was even close to main stream) for selling fossils; another one marketing this speaker device that swore (there was a "G" version too). Somewhere in the basement are a few small binders full of these plans. I remember seeing it a few months ago while tiding up.

I’ll have to look at them again to see how many of those ideas are now other people’s business!

The Search for Work

So why am I searching for a "job"? I’ve got my tea company on hold until I find a new supplier. It took me many months to find a supplier that met my needs. It’s difficult to find a replacement.

Don’t get me wrong, I like being an entrepreneur, but I also know when I need to make money. Right now the tea company is not the place for money making. When I do find a new job, rest assured employer, you will have a dedicated employee on your hands! As I mentioned in a previous post, the only thing that could pull me away from a full-time job, would be a call from Oprah’s people to me on the show (and I don’t think that’ll be happening any time soon!)

My search for work is not just for finding a job job. That I already have. What? You though I wasn’t working? Feh! I like working and making money, I’ve got responsibilities that take money to pay for! The job that I have is doing computer work at a local business. The work is easy and quite boring since there is not much of a challenge to the position. It also only pays $15/hr. You’ve got to be creative to support a family with that income. But I am thankful for the work as I know that there are others that don’t have any.

Each day I spend about an hour look for work surfing various websites. I got my routine down in this department. So far in the five months that I’ve been looking I’ve only applied to about a dozen positions. Some people do a blitz, applying to almost everything for which they are technically qualified. Not me.

I want a job that I’m going to enjoy, something that in my opinion is fun and cool. Some of the positions that I’ve applied for are:

• PM with a foreign exchange company for developing new e-commerce applications (was one of two final interviewees, didn’t get the position, too bad, the work sounded great);
• Sr PM in for a health care company for e-learning. Told the company after the first interview that I wasn’t interested as because I didn’t feel I could passionate about the work (even though they liked me and my experience);
• PM for a start-up company that would be helping entrepreneurs getting their business to the next level (just had the interview yesterday)

The nice thing about the start-up role is that I can do more marketing. My marketing skills are still developing, but they show promise. With the tea company I had dozens and dozens of articles, blog posts, magazines, newspapers articles written. I was responsible for finding the companies, pitching them, everything! I even got a few minutes on a national TV program. Not too shabby eh?

Still looking for the company that needs my skills that has the fun, cool, je ne sais quoi (but I don’t know what it is) elements I’m looking for.

Internet Security and back to Banking

So I started to look for "regular work" (whatever that is) so I could compare what I’ve been earning to what I could earn in the 9-5ish world. I eventually got an offer from one of the largest banks in Canada. It was a Project Management role.

What I discovered during the past years was much of what I was doing happened to be called Project Management. I never know that there was a formal name of it, I was just working for clients! I started to document all of the projects that I had been working on so that I could get my PMP certification. As it turns out all of this PM and documentation was useful as the Bank hired me to start immediately.

Now you may be thinking, after working for myself and at smaller companies, that a large structure like a bank would not be compatible. Fortunately for me, the area of the bank that I was working for was somewhat like "black-ops" within the bank. We would do non-standard programming, communication protocols, file translations that were not "officially" supported by the bank. If you wanted something done and done quickly we were your team.

My role was to manage the many projects that came into the group and get them done in a timely fashion. It was something that took into account most of my skills. People and project management, communication.

The projects that I worked on varied in nature, multi-tasking and concurrent projects were an absolute necessity. Some projects were small taking only a few weeks to complete to those which were more complicated taking many months and require out of country travel The bulk of the projects involved the electronic transfer of funds through a variety of file formats. This included OFX, EDI, ACH, EFT and others.

Occasionally I would take on other projects that were not the standard type. Once such project involved making creating an XML format (using BizTalk) to transfer funds (and verify an account holder’s physical address) for playing online lottery games. This wasn’t for some off-shore gaming company, this was for a government sponsored lottery corporation (ie New York State Lottery Corporation).

Overall the bank exposed me to a variety of formal SDLC methodologies such as Agile and RUP. I honed my PM skills and exposed myself to other banking systems and technologies.

Internet Development to Internet Security

My business model was about to change.

When I started to develop these back office interfaces, I was opening up pipelines leading to the internet from "secure" areas. These databases that were feeding the websites needed to be secure. As a complimentary service to these clients I started to do some free, but detailed internet security audits.

One client was so pleased at the service that I was recommended to another company and another and so on. This was still a small part of my business but it was growing.

As the back office software companies started taking back their business (and locking me out by making the mutual fund dealers sign contracts that "outside" access of the databases would be in violation of their agreements), I needed to find other sources of income. It seems like I was getting into internet security whether I liked it or not. Fortunately I liked it.

Internet security audits were happening on a more regular bases, but they didn’t provided me with a predictable income. One thing that I learned as a stock broker is that mutual funds are a great investment for both the client and the broker. As a broker, I would get anywhere between 0.10% and 1% of the investment (called a trailer fee) each year. I wanted to same thing for internet security.

I developed a subscription based web site security service. Clients would "register" any software product and they would be immediately notified when there were any security compromises. They would be provided with patches or work-around. Alerts would be sent out via email or SMS. It was a really cool service, but it was not drawing the attention that it needed or deserved. I think it was a bit too ahead of its time.

I took too much time on the subscription project and ignored the larger security audits. I eventually got to a point where I could go forward with internet security, but it would require an upgrade in my education (obtaining official credentials and certificates). As a comparative alternative I also started looking for "regular" work.