An amazing start of the week. I have been a bit challenged in my search today. I have a human biology final tomorrow evening on 5 chapters. In the midst of that, I was able to post to a couple of opportunities I saw on Craigs List. I'll come back to that.

On the weekend, I received a phone call for a position in Southern California for a support job. They were also considering an account management position. The conversation started out as a potential entry level position. By the time I was done with my overview of my resume, the interviewer was talking about a Senior position. I need to follow up on this tomorrow. It has potential. The company does software for non-profits. They seem fairly strong financially, though I need some clarification on some of the numbers I saw for them on Yahoo! Financials.

This morning I received a phone call to setup a second round of interviews for the interview I had last week. Again, this is a strong south bay company. The position is for a support manager. It would be an excellent job as the new manager (the hiring manager with whom I spoke) is trying to get all of his ducks in a row before his fiscal year starts so that he can hit the start line at a run instead of from the starting blocks. I really respect that. The interview is on Thursday morning. I am accepting best wishes, prayers, and clean socks for that one!

After getting started on my studies this afternoon, I received a call for the position I applied to via Craigs List earlier. I spoke with the hiring manager for about 45 minutes. It's a manufacturing company in Palo Alto in the pharma industry. They are fairly small, about 75 employees, but doing about $10mil in sales. It is a support position where, guess what? The focus is the customer! I like that a lot. I mean, I make customers happy. Period. What could be better? I have an interview there on Wednesday. I have the clean socks for that. I will still take positive wishes and prayers though.

Again, I have to see the job market as being so much stronger than it was a year ago. It took me about 6 months to get 2 interviews. Much less 2 phone interviews, 3 in-person interviews in the period of a week. I only hope that all of these folks are serious about hiring and about their desire to focus on their customers. That is really the key to success in business. Take care of the customer and everything else will work out.

All in all, a truly amazing week. And it's what? Monday? I have always loved Mondays. I have long contended that Monday is the best day of the week. Argue with me. Go ahead. Don't think I'm gonna loose that one today. It's Monday! :-)

Daniel Hinojosa - I make customers happy. Period.™
--
Daniel Hinojosa - Daniel@RNDH.Org
Resume: www.RNDH.Org/resume/
Consultant: tc.RNDH.Org/
  ¶ 6:59 PM

  A time of hope I received 2 phone interviews in as many days. Both are due to excellent network connections, the first to a deep network connection.

The first - An ad company on the peninsula is in need of a call center manager. I had a chat with the hiring manager. It sounds as though someone is in the position as we speak. The chap with whom I spoke mostly wanted to know that if he brought me in, how would I assess his need for an ACD system. In other words, what metrics would I review and of which would I keep track to let him know his system was up for the job or not? I told him that the call queue, abandon rates, etc, would all be important measures and indicative not only of the ACD system, but also of his need for folks that man the phones. I sense that the answer I delivered was not in the precise terms he sought. He said that he'd be connecting with me again towards the end of the week. I suspect I won't hear from him. Just my sense of it. I hope I'm wrong. Regardless, I'm pleased. Mainly because of the deep network connection that landed me the call. This came from a friend at HP. He had forwarded the job description to me. The message came to him via someone else at HP whose name I recognized back from my time at the Response Center (Mtn. View). I replied to the chap and reminded him who I was in terms of the RC connection and that I had recognized his name. I let him know I felt I would be a good fit for this. He forwarded my resume onto the chap that made the original request. Again, it was a little bit of a stretch in the network, and it came through. I love my network. Thank you to anyone who reads this, because, guess what? You're part of my network too!

The second call was for a company in the south bay. A chap who worked on my last team sent my resume to a friend of his that works at this company. Apparently he liked enough of what he saw on my resume so he forwarded the document onto his recruiter. I had browsed their opportunities yesterday and did see a few things for which I felt I would be well qualified. I had seen the recruiters' name there as well, so I had a few clues to begin. The recruiter spent a bit of time doing a fairly thorough phone interview. I covered my experience from when I came to the bay area through now. He saw the gap in my time at HP (the 1983 - 1988 gap) and asked about that. Not many people catch that. I told him of how I had made a career choice at HP in about 1982 to become a Printed Circuit Board Designer. However, at the time, HP had determined that they had over hired for the position and since I came from manufacturing, I would be sent back to the production lines. I let him know that I had left HP in 1983 to pursue my chosen career path as a printed circuit board designer, working for a couple of companies, including Kaypro in Solana Beach.

With this, we spent some time on the direction of the "target" company and their current needs. It turns out that one of the positions I spotted yesterday is one of the ones the recruiter had in mind for me. Though he did stated that they are expecting to grow a lot in the next few years and could possibly double their employee numbers world-wide in the next couple of years. I like that. I like it a lot. I have heard great things about this company as a company to work for, and I also sense that now is a great time to get in, make a name for yourself, build (or rebuild as the case may be) a solid reputation, and have a valued future there. This company is not a startup. They had close to $1bil in sales last year. Hopefully, the things I can bring to the table, like exceptional people management skills, will be important to them. At the stage where they are, I'm guessing that this is going to be important to them, as well as finding folks who have excellent technology backgrounds. I like my chances. Above all, I'm thankful that I have practiced my interviewing skills. While it has been a while since I've had a regulation interview, I've always interviewed well. That seems to be holding. I like interviewing, so I don't think that can ever be a bad thing.

Of course, as you can see, I'm hopeful...

Daniel Hinojosa - I make customers happy. Period.™
--
Daniel Hinojosa - Daniel@RNDH.Org
Resume: www.RNDH.Org/resume/
Consultant: tc.RNDH.Org/
  ¶ 4:52 PM

  I'm all linked up... I received a couple of invitations from some friends to Join LinkedIn. I finally checked it out and decided to join. I feel like it has the potential to be a useful tool for me in my search.

Last night I sent off a bunch of invitations for folks to join. Amazingly enough, a number of my contacts agreed that this might be a useful thing for them. I see many of them expanding their contacts as the morning progresses.

I have spent the bulk of the morning working with the tool and have actually sent a request for contact to a chap at a company that might be a good fit for me. I need to do a little more research with LinkedIn. However, I like the potential. Hard to know if this will lead to anything, of course.


Daniel Hinojosa - I make customers happy. Period.™
--
Daniel Hinojosa - Daniel@RNDH.Org
Resume: www.RNDH.Org
Consultant: tc.RNDH.Org/
  ¶ 10:43 AM

  A new week dawns... Now that I have my domain hosting changes all complete, I can confidently move forward with the rest of my search task. Review the complete site at: www.RNDH.Org.

Send me your feedback. It's important to me. I tried to make the design functional and simple. Interesting and useful. All of that with my own creative bent. It's these techniques that I like to apply to my search as well as my work.

I have a number of opportunities I need to follow up on, including at Adobe and at HP. At the dawn, I shall embark on the opportunities that await the early bird!

Daniel Hinojosa - I make customers happy. Period.™
--
Daniel Hinojosa - Daniel@RNDH.Org
Resume: www.RNDH.Org/resume/
Consultant: tc.RNDH.Org/
  ¶ 10:13 PM

  Hello? I'm still looking for gainful employment, but I get a sense that more jobs are out there than when I was out the last time. I received about 3 phone calls yesterday. And that was in my first week out. I can't tell you how long it took to get that many calls the last time...

As well, there look to be some quality opportunities out there. The last time I was out, I did have some significant run ins with recruiters. Needless to say, I'm not a fan. Yet, I have run into some pretty nice ones already.

Bottom line is, I'm encouraged.

Daniel Hinojosa - I make customers happy. Period.™
--
Daniel Hinojosa - Daniel@RNDH.Org
Resume: www.RNDH.Org
Consultant: www.RNDH.Org/tc/
  ¶ 2:08 PM

  The search continues...

Hi folks. I'll start with an apology. Last year brought some changes for me, pretty much all positive, and I did not do a very good job of keeping you informed of these changes. I know. You're crushed. :-) Sorry. Primarily I was hired at a nice company in Los Altos. I also started back to school to puruse a Photo-Journalism degree. I'm hoping to earn that at San Jose state University.

At this time, I find myself unemployed again due to a reorganization in my company. With that, as the subject states, the search continues. I'm attaching my resume for management. I would like to land somewhere as a technical support manager or a field support manager.

I am also interested as work as a support engineer (field or phone). If any of you know of a position like this, let me know and I'll send a resume that is more geared towards that. I'd prefer to stay in the Bay Area, and realize that I may need to relocate. I am open to that and am activly considering all possibilities.

If you are able to assist me in my search, thank you. As with the last time, I will be looking to utilize creative methods to get my message and name in front of decision makers. If you have any ideas I haven't already plumbed, please let me know. I'm thinking about buying bus-side ads. We'll see.

Best regards,

Daniel Hinojosa - I make customers happy. Period.™
--
Daniel Hinojosa - Daniel@RNDH.Org
Resume: www.RNDH.Org
Consultant: www.RNDH.Org/tc/
  ¶ 10:55 AM