SidesWays Blog

I've been in my new position for six months now so I have enough distance to write this posting. This past year I experienced unemployment for the first time. The why is not so important for this post (there are many good reasons in today's economy), but I wanted to record some tips that helped me through the experience. 1. Take care of yourself. Exercise regularly. Routine and ritual help you keep your balance. I have a meditation practice that was helpful. Get medical help if you need it. 2. Don't go it alone. Stay in touch with your family, friends, and religious community. 3. Focus. Decide what you want although it may very well change as you experience the ups and mostly downs of job search. Have target companies. They'll change too, but the world is so large that without a focus you'll feel lost. 4. Take a break. You can search for jobs all the time if you don't force yourself to take a break. It takes 48 hours to unwind (see  Cortisol ) though tru...

This was just a fun diversion of hearing what it's like to work at the South Pole. If you're footloose and fancy-free, have a craving for adventure, or are very driven to be cold you may want to try landing a position in Antarctica. One Hell of a Long Day - A Summer Working at the South Pole (David Pablo Cohn) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBaQtsft2bM

While between jobs Nov/Dec/Jan 2010/2011, I prepared for and passed the Project Management Professional exam to obtain the PMP credential (#1385079). One of the Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide's (PMBOK Guide) best practices is writing up a "lessons learned" as part of closing a project or phase. What follows are some notes and lessons learned from my experience. I felt it would be valuable to obtain the PMP to broaden the number of positions that I could apply for and that has definitely panned out to be a benefit. The credential did not significantly enhance my earning potential, but for many project managers it may do so. I enjoyed the process as a review/capstone of the project management I've done over the years. NJ One-Stop Center Part of unemployment support in New Jersey at the present time includes possible retraining grants. There are evidently a bunch of different programs and the "One-Stop" counselors understand the details. I f...

If you're on a job search or looking for a tool to help manage all the bits and pieces of information you have related to your network of contacts check out JibberJobber.com . Spreadsheets can be used for tracking, but quickly become unwieldy after a month of intense networking around a job search. JibberJobber keeps information in Network (contacts), Companies, and Jobs and lets you interlink between them easily. It's SaaS, has good import/export capabilities, and a way to add log entries by copying to an email address. I also like that it has a free option so you can keep your information around between transitions.

Have you done Agile is a common interview question these days if you're applying for a position related to software development. A few quick thoughts: When C++ came along many of its features formalized practices that skilled C programmers were using already. For example: encapsulation. Of course C++ introduced many new concepts. Similarly, Agile (however you define it) formalizes some practices that development groups had been using before the term Agile was coined and added more. For example, timeboxing of releases was a common practice at Dolphin (1984-2005). The concept of a daily build was in use at Microsoft as described in the book ShowStopper (Windows NT development). Zero defect milestones were described by Jim McCarthy in The Dynamics of Software Development . Pair programming was around before XP was coined. The point is that Agile builds on the past and many of us have done Pre-Agile in various forms and should use this experience to adapt to Agile in whatever form...