Archive for the 'The Job Hunt' Category

I be learned, yo

Published at March 10, 2006 in The Job Hunt and Announcements.

So, this is something I’ve held in abeyance, but I need to start seriously studying for the GRE. I can aver that my math knowledge is up to par with the challenges I will face on the test, but I need to ameliorate my verbal abilities if I wish to score well. As such, I am assiduously working my way through a GRE prep booklet and I plan to post daily using the new words I’ve appropriated. I will mark such words in bold-type (such as I’ve been doing in this post). Sorry if my posts sound forced or bombastic, but I’m just trying to get these words in to my vernacular so that I will do well. Also, FYI, I already know some of these words, but if it is in the list, so be it, I’ll try to use it more. My goal is to get through five new words a day. Wish me luck!

-Tom

change is generally good

Published at February 16, 2006 in The Job Hunt, Current Job and Work.

So yesterday, I found out that I will no longer have a job as of May 2nd. This is through no fault of my own mind you. As a vendor to services, my company maintain contracts with other companies and if said contracts do not get renewed, then all of the people who work on that contract are all affected. The particular contract I was working on (can’t be more specific since I’m still tied by an NDA) decided to go with one vendor instead of diversifying with many vendors, and we didn’t have the resources to provide them with the amount of coverage they required. Well, that’s the story we were told at least.

Anyway, that still means that 240 some odd people will be out of a job come May. Yesterday was a bit rough for many of my coworkers. I saw some crying and a lot of people left early (even though we still had a job to do). Truth be told, I was quite happy. I know things are gonna suck for a lot of those people, and I wish them luck, but this is like a swift kick in the ass that I needed. I have been looking for another job for a bit now, but now I have a deadline. Also, the company policy of not surfing job-search sites has been lifted. In addition, they are staggering the lay-off process, with the most senior individuals staying the longest (ie: I won’t be the first to go).

Change is generally a good thing. Hopefully it works out for the best for many of the people at AQ.

what’s new…

Published at January 26, 2006 in Misc., Random Thoughts, The Job Hunt and Announcements.

Well, to begin, I upgraded to WordPress 2.0 a few days ago, and I’ve switched back to the “plain” version of the K2 mod/theme I’m using. I need to get some Photoshop time in so I can get a new image banner and play with the CSS to make the site more… “Tom-like” in appearance. I keep saying I’m gonna do this, but I have not had the time.

Speaking of time, I’ve just come to a realization that I’m at my most creative in the last hour or two before I go to sleep. It’s weird. I’m too tired to form complete sentences most times, but I come up with cool theories and other niftiness. Too bad I also don’t remember half of what I thought up when I wake the next morning, because I never write anything down. That said, most of my best writing is done during this time. Much must be done on my part to read and re-read what I’ve written to check for grammatical and logic errors, but the end result is usually the best I produce… usually.

That leads me to another thing I’ve been toying around with. In the near future I am seriously gonna consider addapting my body to a polyphasic sleep schedule. I’m not interested in it to get more waking hours to “play” with… I’m wondering if I can get more clarity with my thoughts. Just an idea.

Oh yeah, I guess my blog would not be complete without mentioning my job situation. I’m still not sure what the hell is going on, but I may have a job coming my way in the very near future. I can’t name names, but I’ve gotten past two interviews and a background check. Now all that is left is to see whether an opening exists for me. The problem here is, the person who makes that determination is someone I’ve come to fear is not good at following up on tasks… so we’ll see.

Ooh, another thing, I’m back on my search to go to grad school. I keep saying I’ll do this, but I never got around to it during my week of freedom, mainly because I was too engrossed in re-learning Lisp. But, after playing with Lisp, and reading articles on Genetic Programming, as well as some fiction, I think I’m leaning more towards doing research in Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning. The significance of all this is that I now have an idea of what kind of schools I want to target. Now I just need to get past my fear of rejection and apply to some schools (that poor GPA thing, entirely my fault, kind of makes it harder to go to the schools I want). Meh.

Anyway, I’m outta here, thanks for dealing with my rambling.

-Tom

The Job Hunt…

Published at December 5, 2005 in Random Thoughts, The Job Hunt and Work.

So, as some people know, I’m deeply entrenched in the job-hunt. More specifically, I recently interviewed for a Mac Genius position at the Tyson’s Corner Apple Store. I’m not sure what I am at liberty to say, since Apple is a secretive company, so if it looks like I’m leaving things out… I am.

Truth be told, I suck at interviews. Always have, I think I always will. With that said, I think this interview was my best… but I just can’t help thinking over all of the little things that happened during my interview, and thinking I could have said something better, or been just a little more relaxed, or a ton of other little things. I left the interview feeling positive, but four days later, and I’m a wreck.

So how do I think I “failed”? Well, Apple is a hip, customer-service oriented company. Apple loves their customers, and the customers love Apple back. I can’t shake the feeling I was too uptight, not as relaxed as I am in real life. I tried to joke around and be social, but I think I was too concerned about my presentation, that I may have done the opposite of what I intended. Maybe I’m just reading in to things a bit too much. Another thing I feel I failed in, was in asking questions. I know its good to ask questions and get a feel for the job that I’m applying for. But I know a lot about the position. I had a friend who was a Mac Genius, and I’m familiar with how Apple does business. When it came time to ask questions of my interviewer, I blanked out. I now have some questions in mind, but that does not help as much after-the-fact.

Keep in mind, this is me “over-thinking” the interview. I probably did a good job. Still, I know three of the people I’m competing with for the job, and they are strong candidates as well.

Meh, in other news, I posted my resume up on Dice.com and I’ve already received three emails with job opportunities. All of them are in programming, which is awesome. None of them are Mac-specific, which is a slight bummer, but it could lead to some opportunities and much-needed experience. It would be great if it were contract-work, that way, were I to become a Mac Genius, I could still get some extra cash/experience in.

OK, this was my update on the job-front, hope those of you who read it enjoyed my ramblings.

-Tom

Tom goes back to school…

Published at October 27, 2005 in Misc., Random Thoughts, The Job Hunt, Friends and Family and Announcements.

So I was looking at how much Paid Time Off I’d accumulated since my last “vacation” (which was not very relaxing) and I found that I had two weeks of time saved up… so pending my last-minute vacation request going through… I’m going back to school for a week!

I plan to take next week off and I’ll be spending most of that time at UMBC. Here is what I have on my agenda for that time. I plan to put in 8 hour days for the 5 weekdays, and I’ll try to actually relax on the weekends…

Mon-Fri (UMBC Library):

  • 3 hours learning and coding in Cocoa/Objective-C [text: Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass]
  • 1 hour job hunting, making use of the Shriver Center on campus
  • 3 hours learning and coding in Lisp [text: ANSI Common Lisp and On Lisp by Paul Graham]
  • 1 hour researching and applying to grad schools
  • Extra Credit: hitting on cute undergrad girls and studying algorithms


    • NOTE: I think the school library will be a lot more conductive to me learning than sitting at home with a bajillion distractions (like pr0n ;) and the desks there are better set-up for study (ie: no bed to beckon to me)

    Saturday (wherever):

    PARTY!!! … and maybe brush up on Unix/Linux system admin.

    Sunday (Prince Frederick, MD):

    Visit the Parental Units

    Wish Me Luck!

    San Jose State Univeristy?

    Published at June 9, 2005 in The Job Hunt.

    I just went to SJSU’s page for prospective grad students in Computer Science and I might be able to get in there with little hastle… part of the hang-up has been having time to study for the GRE, or more problematic, getting letters of recommendation from some of my old professors (I’d ask Mitch Edelman and Samuel Lomanaco, for those who want to know). Hrm… right in the heart of Silicon Valley…

    -Tom

    Grad School…

    Published at June 9, 2005 in The Job Hunt.

    Time for me to seriously look in to grad school. So far, I can fall back on UMBC’s grad program, but I’m looking in to moving out west. I may consider up north in the NY area, as well as someplace near Austin Texas, but that will all have to be determined. Actually, any place that will take a 26yr old who wants to enter in to graduate studies in Computer Science. Suggestions?

    -Tom

    Google’s Summer of Code

    Published at June 1, 2005 in News and The Job Hunt.

    http://code.google.com/summerofcode.html

    I gotta go!!!! John will kill me!~!!

    Published at May 27, 2005 in My Crazy AdVenture, The Job Hunt and Friends and Family.

    quick entry to remind self of things to post on:

  • invention v. innovation (direction of future startup)
  • iPhoto book
  • put resume up

    • -Tom