Job Search Lessons - LinkedIn, A Cautionary Tale

I left a job with the intention of taking 6-12 months off to take some trips, work on the house, and execute an ambitious volunteer project.  Just to be safe, though, I maintained a Premium LinkedIn account to a Premium account, specifically, Job Seeker.

I went about the things I wanted to do and exactly 12 months later I ramped up my job search.  I set up various searches and alerts, reached out to a select group of contacts, and started going through my personal contact entries and evaluating whether or not to add them as LinkedIn connections.

I was a job search machine.  Then I hit a speed bump.  Less than two weeks into March, I started seeing a strange message and most of my search results blurred out. Had I broken the Internet?

Job Search Lessons - Take Advantage of LinkedIn

I have just wrapped up a successful job search and embarked on a great new opportunity.  I feel like this is the first "real" job search I have ever performed, because my prior jobs had been a long string of being recruited into the next job.  I learned a lot about the process and a little about myself along the way.

Job Search Lessons - Taking a Break

I have just wrapped up a successful job search and embarked on a great new opportunity.  I feel like this is the first "real" job search I have ever performed, because my prior jobs had been a long string of being recruited into the next job.  I learned a lot about the process and a little about myself along the way.

One interesting aspect of this is that I took a long break, just over a year.  Many people will tell you that leaving your job before you have a new one is something to be avoided at all costs.  I challenge that notion.

Here is what I learned about taking a break between jobs.

Codecademy: Accessible, Practical, and Useful

Let me sing the praises of Codecademy...

This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting with a fellow alumni from Rice University (I earned my PhD in Applied Physics there in 2002).  She is only a few years out of school and still weighing her future options.  However, we both came to understand a shared interest in coding...for fun and personal development.

So, as with everyone that expresses an interest to try out coding, I had to share with her the wonder that is Codecademy.

Creating a Letterbox Matte With GIMP

The GNU Image Manipulation Program, or "GIMP", is a great tool for image editing.  It is freely-available, which is great news for those with a casual need to edit images that don't want to invest in an expensive software suite.

However, it can be a little trickier to use...

Digital Natives Are A Cultural Technology Advancement

I love digital natives.  I believe they are akin to a cultural technology advancement.  They are helping usher in a new age of human-centered design, because they demand a more intuitive, human-centered functionality in their technology.