I’ve been officially unemployed for about 7 weeks. I have a coach, and about 5 mentors (holy cow y’all I’m so lucky). After talking with my coach this afternoon, I thought I’d free-style my thoughts on what I’ve done, and where I am. I’m leaving some details out, but here’s where I am:
- I’ve gotten pretty deep in discussions/the interview process with a couple of companies. The roles were not right for me, and both sides knew it. My mentor says I’m brave. I told her, “Let’s see what we want to call that in a couple of months”.
- I’m pretty sure I know what I want in my next role.
- Work with new technology. There are lots of opportunity for that right now in the storage industry!
- Work with other strong product marketers. I worked with for a great boss at Dell, and learned a ton in 2 years. I think I have room to grow here and would love to join a strong team.
- Work with a team that understands social media is for building relationships, not just broadcasting. This is not as easy as it sounds. I think marketers struggle with this, and I think some consultants are leading them down a treacherous path. I want to work with marketers who are looking to build relationships with their markets.
- I’ve come to the conclusion I’m going to probably need to leave Austin. This is scary and sad….but it’s time for a new adventure.
- I got to go to SXSW for the first time, volunteer for friends and meetup with other friends. Not to mention see Kevin Hart 🙂
- I went to the SNIA data storage innovation conference. It reaffirmed to me that I’m a storage person first. I’d like to get more involved with SNIA.
- I’m writing a book. It’s a lot harder than you would think – it involves lots of reading and research.
- I also have another big project up my sleeve that I can’t wait to talk more about.
- Interviewing and talking to some very interesting companies right now. Things are progressing!
Not knowing when or where my next role is coming from is pretty frightening. Having the opportunity to wait for the right role for me is so exciting though. And my coach is right — even though it seems like all of this is happening slowly, it’s really not. I’m not usually patient, this is a new lesson for me. I can’t wait to see how it turns out!
Hadn’t visited your site for quite a while. I noted from FB that you were seeking new adventure. Just finished up a project and looking for a new adventure myself. Best of luck. “See” ya ’round.
–SS