Honey, I was downsized

The good points:

• You are already knowledgeable about the product – yourself!
• You are very motivated to see this product marketing campaign succeed.
• You only need one sale, and you are back in business.
• You get to really evaluate your current career.  Do you want to change it?
  

The bad points:

• Sales and marketing are VERY hard.
• Sales is a skill that software engineering doesn’t prepare us for.
• Software is for deep thinkers.  Sales is for extroverts.  The two don’t always match, but that means that we get to grow.
• Since you only need one sale, you will get a lot of rejections before you make that big sale.  It will get you down.
• The finances during the job search won’t be as good as before.
  

Here are a few of the ideas that I heard about and/or learned over the last year as I was unemployed.  As with any advice, use what is applicable to you.

• Understand the job search.
• There are really four ways to look for a job.  Obviously, these all do blend together, but here they are split out.  They are also in order of what has worked for me the best.
• Contacts.  In your head, go through every technical job that you have ever had.  Write down everyone’s name and contact info.  If you don’t know how to get in touch with them, figure out who does.  Write down every one of your close friends, no matter what occupation.  Write down your barber, lawyer, neighbors, EVERYONE.  Get in touch with someone, and get a phone list from E&S.  (I probably can and will get it for you, if you cannot.)  OK, you now have a contact list to start with.  This will grow a lot with time.  
• Contract houses.  This basically means that you want to get your resume out to the world, while still not becoming one of the masses, and hope that they call you.  I have posted my resume on www.cjhunter.com with pretty good results. See “Online” below.
• Companies.  Now, try to remember EVERY SINGLE Company you have ever heard about that does software or hardware.  Include companies that would use software as support, for instance – medical equipment manufacturers.  Include (at least at first) every company along the Wasatch front, maybe Logan, maybe Tooele, Park City, etc.  You now have a list of companies to start pinging, and as a side benefit, you have something to talk to some of the folks from the last bullet about.
• Career.  What are you good at?  Write down 5 or 10 things.  Now, using the internet and contacts (see two bullets up), find companies that need this.  For instance, embedded, drivers, Unix, OS internals, BIOS programming come to mind.  Now, who does this? (See next bullet up)
  

Types of jobs.

• There are really 3 types of jobs that you can look for.  They each have plusses and minuses.  Also see Salary below.
• Salaried, exempt.  Self explanatory.
• Contractor, 1099.  This one is where you actually work for a company directly.  You work for them for an hour, they pay for that hour.  You pay all taxes, including employer’s FICA.  You get absolutely NO benefits.  Taxes are harder at the end of the year.  You must pay quarterly estimates of your taxes.  If you are out of town, you deduct expenses from your taxes.  Pay needs to be higher here to compensate for expenses.
• Subcontractor, W-2.  Here, you are in essence working for a company.  Benefits are poor, but do exist. They pay FICA.  Taxes are MUCH easier to do at the end of the year.  If you are out of town, you may be able to get a per-diem  This is a VERY, VERY good thing to get.  Pay can be a bit lower here because of benefits.
  

Make a plan.

• Decide what area you will look, and when you will expand that area.  For instance, it doesn’t make sense to want to stay in SLC, have good contacts that you still need to contact, and to start spending lots of time looking out of state.  On the other hand, BEFORE in state is totally dry, start working out of state ideas.
• Get a handle on finances.  If you are technically still employed at E&S, see if you can still get a home equity line of credit.  Spend as little as possible.  Above all else, keep the house payment up to date – AND KEEP HEALH INSURANCE!!!  COBRA is expensive, but don’t jeopardize your future.
• Don’t forget what the goal is.  If taking a part time job slows down the job search (and it probably will), if possible, don’t take a part time job.  Put spouse temporarily to work.  Borrow (if absolutely, absolutely necessary).  But keep up the full time, day job.
• Realize that most jobs that you feel are a sure thing will fail.  Something like 50% of the jobs that I have been told I had ended up going bust before starting.  So, get as many irons into the fire as possible, and keep pushing until you sign a contract.  Before then, you are still unemployed.  Use your time wisely.  You may need to re-read this paragraph a few times!
  

Make an office.

• Get a personal space that you can work.  This may be in the basement, spare room, or your parents’ house.  Put a desk there, phone, pens, notebooks.  Card table works fine.  Nothing else to play with.
• The one type of equipment that I believe is absolutely essential is a computer and very good quality printer.  As far as printers go, ink-jets are fine.  You want to be able to print out cover letters quickly, and make them look excellent.
• The phone – see under Make Rules.
  

Get a mentor.

• Find someone you can tell about your week, each week.  Report back to this person.  Make marketing goals (2 phone calls/day == 14 per week was mine).  This person should NOT be a member of the family.  You want someone who can be objective, gently critical, and not get scared as the job search winds on its path.
• Once a day, or once a week, or twice a week, tell the family how it is going.  Tell them what you are doing, how you feel, etc.  Try to make it an honest, but uplifting time.  Learn to trust each other.  Remember that every one in the household was rif’d – not just the worker.  Everyone needs to be a part of the search.  On the other hand, don’t open up so much that it distracts from the goal – getting a job.  For Anne and me, once a day was enough.  I told her how things went the previous day at breakfast.
  

Make a list of people.

• I already covered this, but it is important.  Make a spread sheet of everyone that you know, phone numbers, e-mail, when you contacted them, when you should contact them again.   Otherwise you will forget.

Make rules.

• Talk to your spouse about house rules.  These rules are for two reasons – to help others not distract you and bother you, and to discipline you.
• 8:30 – 4, AT LEAST 5 days a week, is marketing.  No house chores, cleaning lint from the vacuum, skiing, etc.  You will learn what works for you – I usually had one day of the weekend for marketing.  I made calls to friends at home.
• If you do home chores, do them at night and on those 2 “off” days.  Finish things, don’t start things.  Do chores that will save you money.  Do paint the house if it really needs it (labor intensive), don’t put in new carpet (money intensive).
• One day a week, you are off.  Go for a hike, go for a walk, work on keeping personal relations up, etc.  You will earn it.  Take it.
• Always keep in mind what the goals are.  The goal is to get a job.  How do you get a job?  Asking for one.  So, your goal is to ask for a job.  How do you ask for a job?  Get an interview.  How do you get an interview?  Contacting people.  In other words, learning Linux, or MS Visual C++, or taking lots of time to enter all companies in the US into a database is wonderful, but should only be done from midnight to 8am.  It won’t help you get a job.
• The phone.  Unfortunately, the family phone has just become a work phone.  This means that some temporary rules should apply.  1) Adults only should answer the phone.  2) Don’t have the person answering the phone ask “who is calling” – this offends some callers.  3) Go to your office.  It is possible to hear others in the background (especially young kids playing) if you are not alone.  This is very distracting.   4) Prepare to be able to take a phone interview at any time.  Be ready.  This is very impressive.  5) OK – I lied.  If you are in a situation that makes receiving a phone interview impossible – driving the car – ask if you can call back.  Make it very soon – within an hour at the outside.  6) Get on the national do not call list.  You don’t need the frustration of dealing with phone solicitors.
  

Keep records.

• Buy a few notebooks. 
• Take notes of every single idea and contact you have.  Log the date, person, what they said, gossip, contacts, names, etc.  I have 3 of these – one for each time I was unemployed.  They were invaluable.  You will be surprised what you will forget after talking to the first 20 people (some multiple times).
• Create an excel spread sheet of contacts.  Put every single thing you possibly can into this – knowledge is power.
  

Online stuff.

• Online web sites that are good/important:
• www.cjhunter.com.  Join.  Post your resume.  Read their “Contracting Intro”.  Read their “My Resume/Online Resume/About your resume online”.  Great info on how to create a text only resume.
• www.dice.com.  Use to be a contractor only web site – seems to be more of everything now.  I have heard that this one is now more West Coast.
• www.monster.com.  Another good one.  I have heard this one is more East Coast.
• www.hotjobs.com  Yet another good one.
• Very often, what I have found to be important looking at dice and monster is NOT the specific jobs, but the trends.  If you want to know if Phoenix is hot, check dice.  After that, try to get a contract house working for you that is in Phoenix.
• Generally, if a job is posted, it is too late.  You already have LOTS of competition.  So, if you have nothing to do, apply.  If you have something else to do, don’t waste your time.
• I have never gotten a reply from submitting a resume to a company’s web site without a specific job in mind.  
• There is a fine balancing act trying to act like your resume is special and exclusive, and isn’t being broadcast to the world, while getting as many folks as possible to read it.
  

Contract houses

• Here is a list of some of the contract houses that I have dealt with.  Some are pretty good, some I have no idea on.
• www.manpower.com.  Used mostly by Honeywell.  Last contract.
• www.oxfordcorp.com.  Successfully used by some folks in Vegas, Reno, Phoenix, etc.  
• www.globaltechnical.com.  Actually, Global Technical Services.  Used by Lockheed Martin.  I am currently with these folks.
• Hall Kenion.  This was the premier contract house in SLC a few years ago.  When I went in last year, they were at a skeleton crew, and said they had nothing.
• There are a few important things to know when dealing with a contract house:
• Everyone has a hand in the pot.  Because of this, if a company has a primary contracting house, you want to go through them.  Otherwise, you have 2 contracting houses taking money out of your paycheck – the primary and the one you are working with.
• Contracting houses make life easier.  They have a per diem (often).  They may pay holidays and vacations.  They simplify taxes (W-2).
• Contracting houses may cost you money.  If you are on a 1099, there is no one else taking money out of the pot.
• Once one contracting house has submitted your resume somewhere, no one else may for a period of time.  So, there is no advantage of going with multiple houses trying to get the same job (from what I have experienced and been told).
• Often, when a contract house contacts you, and they are playing coy and haven’t told you what the name of a company is, you can figure out where the job is and apply directly.
• If a contract house tells you where the job is (company), you probably should honor their trust and not go around them.
  

A day in the life.

• Generally, I would disappear after breakfast, and stay at the table until lunch.  Then after lunch, I would disappear until dinner.
• If possible, know what you are going to do each day.  Write it down.  Make lists.  There are two kinds of lists – “Win the contract!” and “Call at least 6 people from the people list”.  I mean to make the second type of list, not the first.
• Don’t waste time calling folks that cannot help you get a job.  If you already called you neighbor (twice), another time probably is just procrastination.
• Go to lunch OFTEN, maybe twice a week, with someone you feel can help you get a job.  Go alone (no spouse, kids, etc.)  Try to slyly get the other person to not bring anyone, if possible.  This person should have something to offer you – contacts, or ideas, or a critique of your progress, etc.  Make it a different person each time.  Go to the soup kitchen in sugarhouse, or some other cheap, quaint place.  Talk shop.  Talk jobs. Talk contacts.  After all, this is a working lunch, and this lunch is costing time and money.
• OK, every few weeks, go out to lunch with the old friends.  Even though you aren’t talking shop, it will lift your spirits and keep those contacts thinking about you.  Take your spouse on these types, if you like.
• Follow up immediately on hot contacts.  Someone else probably also heard about it, and he/she WILL follow up.  Don’t be second in line.
• Use a land line – not a cell phone.  Cell phones are not as clean.  OK, if a cell phone is your only option, use a FULL battery,  and buy a good head set.  They have better microphones.
• Give your cell phone number to everyone.  You are going to be on the phone a lot – give people a way to get in touch with you. 
  

Resume.

• Get a good book.  Read.  Write.  Polish.  Polish some more.  Let multiple people read your resume – technical and non-technical.
• If you have a hard time writing cover letters, write a practice one now.  Get a good book.  Read.  Write.  Polish.  You will need to create a cover letter and/or cover e-mail within a day of promising one.
• Resumes are interesting.  They are used to weed you out of jobs (by looking at a list of minimum qualifications), and also are used to peak someone’s interests (if that someone sees stuff he/she is looking for but hasn’t seen much of).
• A bad resume will kill your chances before you even get the interview.
• A good resume will help you get an interview.
• A good resume will not help you much to get a job – that is the job of the interview.
• NEVER lie on a resume.  It will come back to haunt you.
• EMBELISH on a resume.  Every one does.
• Use VERY GOOD paper.  Buy a ream at Kinko’s.  100% cotton, tell them you want conservative, white, resume paper.  Wait until after your class – teacher may recommend something specific.  Use this paper for cover letters also.
• Fine, after what I just said – the VAST majority of my resumes were passed as word documents in an e-mail.
• When you tell someone you will send your resume, ask if they want plain ASCII text, or a .doc document.  A good way to make a text resume in Word is “save as” and use “MSDOS text with layout”.
• Have someone else proof read every single document that you send out (email or hard copy).
• Two pages or more?  This one is VERY unclear.  I have recently changed my mind – I believe that over 2 pages is probably OK for a senior person, for the following reasons: 1) Most resumes are handled electronically, which tends to hide the size.  2) Number of buzz words seem to be VERY important for scanning purposes.  3) If you present your resume as an ASCII text file, the size may/will change anyway.  I have concluded that 3 is OK, but NO MORE.
• The more buzz words, the better.  We are not writing a resume for a salesman – we are writing a resume that will reside in a database and that database will be searched for specific words.  So, do lots of “Solved SPECIFIC NUMBER OR PERCENT of problems using tool A, tool B, and tool C on blaA platform cross compiled for the gagaC chip from inteSoftMM, saving GAGA $$$’s”  Basically, (third person, please) I did great things, I did something measurable, and here were the buzz words that I used.
• It seems that once a buzz word is in your resume, once is enough for the search engine.  However, if they are looking for 15 years of .NET experience, you may want to have .NET multiple times over many years.
• AT LEAST customize your summary section for each job.  If you have the time, and are getting desperate enough, customize your resume for each job.  BE SURE TO HAVE SOMEONE RE-REVIEW IT EVERY TIME.
  

Salary and compensation.

• How do you figure out what a fair compensation package is?  The following bullets may help.
• Salaried job
• Check out www.salary.com.  I have always only used the basic service.  Select a location.  Select “Engineering” as the job category.  Search.  Select (for me) Software Engineer IIII.  Here is what the average person with your skill set is worth.
• In a funny way, what you were making will effect what you will make – if you let it.  Often, companies will offer what you did make, or a 3-6% raise.  Also, often your previous salary can knock you out of the running if it was too high.  Read a good book on negotiating salary – the dummy books have good salary chapters. 
• The length of your employment at one job will probably be measured in years, but there are no guarantees.
• You tend to get very good experience about a few things doing this.   A mile deep, an few inches wide.
• What do you charge for?  Generally, you get paid a flat monthly amount to get the job done.  Normally, overtime is donated to the company, although not always.
• W-2 contract
• OK – for this one, there are two things to consider.  Going rate – somewhere around $50 - $60 per hour, for a Senior software engineer at this time.  The second is what you make contracting vs just getting a full time job.
• Take the salary that you could make full time.  Multiply by about 1.3.  This is what you need to make to compensate for benefits.  
• Or, actually add in the benefits for a more accurate answer.  Don’t forget to add in vacation time, holidays, 401k, 401k matching, pension, and health and life insurance.
• You may want to add a fudge factor for being unemployed more often.
• Divide by 2080.  This is the number of normal work hours in a year.  You now have dollars/hour for a salaried job.  I find the break even point somewhere around $50/hour to $60/hour. 
• Add in overtime.  If you are allowed to work 50 hours a week, you just received a 25% raise. You also won’t have much of a life over the lifetime of the contract either.  Overtime is really where contracting shines.
• Take into account living expenses.  If you are out of town, you will be supporting two households.  This costs.  BUT, see next bullet…
• Per diem split.  
• This is where the government will allow you to be paid part of your income as salary, and part as living expenses.  For instance, if you make $50/hour, the contract house could pay you $30/hour as wage, and $20/hour as living expenses.  The savings comes in because you DON’T pay taxes on this $20/hour.  This means that you keep all of it!  Very likely, you will spend significantly less than the $20/hour over many months.  If you are careful, you will spend less than you save from the tax advantage.  This goes into your pocket – and you just got a raise!
• From my experience, a per diem split is MUCH more lucrative than just writing off your expenses.  When writing off your expenses – you only get to write off what you have spent – and uncle sam will help with maybe a third of that.  With a per diem, you get credit for much more than you are likely to spend, and you get to keep what you don’t spend.
• You can only be on a per diem IF your contract is expected to last less than a year.  (364 days is less than a year).  After that, you have to leave that city and head for another one.
• Some contract houses will pay you per diem for 5 days a week (assuming you go home on weekends), some pay for 7.
• Your time on a particular job will be about 6 months here – ON AVERAGE.  This will bounce violently from a few weeks to a few years.
• You tend to get good experience about a great deal of things doing this.   A few yards deep, a mile wide.
• What do you charge for?  I charge for ALL time spent working, from time in the door to time out the door.  If I am in spinup mode, however, I will probably spend a few weekends and/or nights the first month learning.  This time is usually on my nickel.
• Be sure to get a contract.
• Bill as required in the contract.  Don’t let the contracting house get behind, or start looking for another position once again.
• 1099 contract
• Here, you are working for your self.  Take the w-2 per hour compensation that you calculate that equates to a salaried job, and multiply by 1.075 (I think).  This represents your additional FICA that you have to pay.
• Also, this one requires paying quarterly payments – using a 1099 form.  UGLY.  Be sure to stay up to date with these payments. The penalties are really stiff.
  
• Theoretically, you should be able to charge more here, since the contract house doesn’t have their hands in the pot.  As a wild guess, you should make at least 10% more by removing the contracting house.  (This does not include the FICA calculated above.)
• I find the breakeven point to be about $60/hour.
• You have a slightly higher risk of not getting paid here.
• Your time on a particular job will be about 6 months here – ON AVERAGE.  This will bounce violently from a few weeks to a few years.
• What do you charge for?  I charge for ALL time spent working, from time in the door to time out the door.  If I am in spinup mode, however, I will probably spend a few weekends and/or nights the first month learning.  This time is usually on my nickel.
• Have a contract.  These were always presented to me by my employer, but shouldn’t be too hard to create.
• Bill twice a month.  Have an invoice.  Have the specific hours and days worked on the invoice.  Get each invoice signed.  Keep copies.  Have all bills due within 30 days, with 1% interest added per month, for late fees.  If they get behind, start looking elsewhere.

If you don’t have a degree.

• We all have assets.  We all have liabilities.  Get to honestly know yours.  Put forth those assets.  Create ways to minimize the damage from our liabilities.
• For instance, when interviewing with Flex, a friend later told me that I was so very outgoing with answers that I came across as a fraud.  Excellent observation – I tried to let the interviewer run the interviews from that point forward.  Seems to have worked – I picked up two more jobs in the following months.
• Come up with a very good bullet on your resume.  For instance, for years, my resume had (something like) the following bullet:
• Utah State University    Logan, Utah
• Completing Masters of Science degree in Computer Science.  Projected completion date: fill in date 9 months from now.  Thesis topic: fill in with whatever employer wants. 
• Just a thought for you (ask the teacher at your class this week!):
• University of Utah        Salt Lake City, Utah
• Computer science and … curriculum     fromDate-toDate
• In other words, I wonder if you could leave it vague.
• Put it at the bottom, second page, so they have to look for it.
• Come up with a bulletproof, bombproof reply to all of the hard degree questions.  An answer may be something like “I had medical problems with my knees during my last quarter at the U and had to leave before I graduated.  With over 25 years of experience in this and that design and implementation, this really hasn’t held me back.  In fact, at E&S, I worked with other and more.  Would you like me to tell you more about the otherMore project at E&S?  (Notice I answered the question, and then changed the subject.)
  

Interviews.

• Get a good book.  Read it.  Repeat, before every interview.  If you are nervous of interviewing, have a few practice ones, before multiple people.  You will feel like an idiot.  Tough – do it anyway!
• Learn your personality weaknesses, and try to compensate.  If you are too outgoing (like I am), learn to relax and wait for the interviewer more.
  

Get down.  Get back up.

• Fine.  You tried it.  It isn’t working.  Becoming a monk in Tibet is looking better and better.  Or a checker at the local grocery store.
• Let it flow.  Realize that it is OK to get down.  You will.
• What is important is what happens next.  Everyone deals with the downs differently.  What is important is that you not let this impact your job search.
• If you need a day off, take it.  If you are feeling inadequate, talk to a good friend and try to get centered.  If you really, absolutely, positively need a successful phone call, call a friend and talk about how you feel.  That phone call will probably be successful – after all, you called a friend!
• Start (or continue) an exercise program.  Do it every day, if there is time (not during the daytime!)  (Well, OK – I often went for a swim a few times a week in the middle of the day.  Helped keep me up.)
  

Miscellaneous thoughts.

• When you are contracting, or even starting a new job, think hard before quickly buying a new house.  Time and time again, I have seen engineers get a “good” contract, buy a house, loose the contract, and have to move to another city.  Big loss emotionally and financially.

Resources.

• Resumes for Dummies.
• Interviews for Dummies.
• Cover letters for Dummies.
• Library
• Old newspapers
• “Utah Business”
• Internet
• Research potential companies – find out about them, prepare for interviews.
• http://www.wasatchdigitaliq.com/ - good web site on Utah business.  Not updated much, but good place to find business names nonetheless.