Day 99 – hard sell

I had 2 job interviews this week and overall about a dozen (phone and in person) and the hardest thing I have to do is under sell myself. It’s extremely difficult to play down my experience. All I want to do is be an individual contributor for a change. A  little less responsibility. Be able to go home at 5 or 6 and not be married to my iPhone or CrackBerry. Is that too much to ask for? Apparently it is because if I had a nickel for every time someone told me that I was overqualified, I could retire by now. Everyone is afraid that I’ll be bored. I try to explain that I don’t really get bored and can find processes to improve and things to do. But it’s of no use. And here I just want to scream out “You should hire me because I am a rock star AND I will make you look good! and p.s. I don’t want your management job either so relax.” Perhaps a t-shirt or a new business card that I can just hand them when they hand me theirs. And if I have one more person ask me if I am PMP certified I think I am going to scream. I’ve decided that the next time someone asks me, I need to come up with something clever. Any ideas? Maybe instead of saying I think that certifications are for people that have no experience, perhaps I’ll ask them, “If you had as much experience in project management as I did, would you think it would be worth your time to go back for a (silly) certification?”

I did have one nice person tell me today that although they thought I was overqualified they knew of someone that was hiring for a manager position at a company in the South Bay. But I politely declined. Why? Because that’s a non-starter going back to a 75 minute each way commute if I can help it. I really don’t want to have to do that if at all possible.

I just got back from Cavallo Point (right over the Golden Gate Bridge) for a nice over night stay and then spent the afternoon in Sausalito with my hubby. We had a great time and then we saw our last Oscar nominated film, An Education. It was really good. We also saw Precious the other night and that was good too, but heavy. Made me cry.

Tomorrow, lunch with an old friend and former mentor and getting my hair cut and then happy hour at Iluna Basque as they celebrate their 6th year anniversary with half price appetizers and bottles of wine from 5:30-7:30. Woohoo! And the beauty is that I can actually make it there by 5:30 because I am not working and don’t have that long ass drive. Just yet another reason to keep my job search closer to home.

Until tomorrow.

Day 93

I am starting to really enjoy my time off. Yesterday I had lunch with a friend and former co-worker at one of my favorite dive sushi places in San Carlos. And next week I am going to lunch with another former co-worker and my former mentor.

I have 3 irons in the fire right now with possible job prospects. Two are in the city and one is just outside the city. So let’s keep our fingers crossed. I have finally broken through the “in person” interview barrier and gotten past the phone interview with one company so far.

But one thing came up during my phone interviews that I’d like to touch on. Certifications. I’ve been asked a few times if I have a certification in project management because it doesn’t seem to be listed on my resume. Well, I don’t have one. I have 15 years of project management, product management and partner program management experience. I told one recruiter that I believe that certifications are for people who have no experience in something. I’m not sure how well that went over, but it’s true when you think about it.

At this rate in my career, I would never go back for a certification in anything. If I was going to invest time and energy in education of any kind it would be to get my Masters degree in something, but definitely not an MBA either. I don’t want an MBA because I don’t want a job in finance or business development. I know how a business runs and I’ve even created my own nonprofit which is why I definitely know I don’t want to go back for an MBA.

But as I mentioned before, I am now competing with many people who went back to school or who are going back to school. I’ve been wanting to get my Masters in something for 10 years now. I often think I should have just gone and done it after college. But I didn’t know what I wanted a degree in at that time and I certainly didn’t want to go back to school because I couldn’t wait to get out.

Only recently, right before my lay off,  have I decided that I might want to go and get my M.F.A to help further pursue my writing career. If I ever get published, that will look good on my book jacket cover. But I can’t go back to school while collecting unemployment because that will cut of my benefits, plus I can’t really afford to do that right now. However, taking night classes once I get a job is looking like a possibility in my near future.

Two articles I recently published on Divine Caroline about Social networking 101 and the SF Examiner on emailing in the work place.

And don’t forget to check out my blog with my experiment on FarmVille.