Preoccupations: Finding a Job, but Moving a Family
July 25, 2009 by admin
Filed under Career News and Advice
I WAS laid off last August and was looking for work until February of this year, when I was offered a position at Emerson Process Management in Houston. I was living in Chaska, Minn., so I had a decision to make: Should I uproot my family and move, or keep looking? After talking it over with my wife, Mary, and my four children, I decided to relocate. The job match justified the move.
I’m vice president of technology in the gas chromatographs ision, which makes instruments for analyzing chemical components of gases in harsh climates. I had been working at Xiotech, a data storage company in Eden Prairie, Minn., which acquired a company in 2007 and then ran into a rough patch. I knew that my position was in danger, so I had been looking intermittently for other jobs anyway.
I had never been laid off before. It was a bit of a shock, but I’ve been a director or a vice president for almost 15 years, and executives have large networks to draw on. I enjoyed networking. I got to meet a lot of people when I was out of work, and I heard a lot of different stories.
I’m used to being in control, however, and you can’t control what happens during a job search. You have no idea what’s going to work and what’s not.
A big issue was having jobs disappear after I went on interviews. Once a person I used to manage arranged an interview for me with two executives at an industrial machine company. I went so far as to visit a client in Florida for them. Then they said they weren’t hiring after all.
After that, I interviewed with a company that later chose to hire from within. I had lunch with an acting senior director there whose job I wanted. His official title was …
Read the original article at NYTimes
