Did I mention that I'm off the dole?

When it rains it pours. After a job search drought of nearly three months, I finally started getting some employment nibbles. Perhaps it was the nth revision of my resume, ever-refining my achievement-oriented bullets to convey more/better/faster, perhaps it was the recovering economy, or perhaps it was just dumb luck and serendipitous timing. But in September, I began making headway with three different IT-oriented opportunities, one with a public utilities company, another with a banking regulator, and another with a friend with whom I'd worked before.

In short, I ended up casting my lot with my friend's business, an IT services and technical consulting firm named LanXpert. I'd actually first entertained the idea of working at LanXpert in 1995 as I and many of my colleagues at ZD Labs (one of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company's computer testing facilities) were thinking of leaving the nest. Instead, I joined Oracle Corp. to develop expertise with core enterprise applications infrastructure and solutions development.

I ended up moonlighting with LanXpert over the years, which was a great means to apply and hone the knowledge I was learning at Oracle's "Emerald City" HQ to real world SMB IT needs. After five years at Oracle, I spent another nine years building industry-specific subject matter expertise (in financial services) and leading a software development group. And then I was laid off.

It's funny how things work out. I'd already intended to seek more core IT responsibilities for my next gig. The utility company and banking regulator opportunities danced around the edges of what I was seeking, but I wasn't complaining since a key goal was to just get in the door; I trusted my merits to sort things out eventually. But the LanXpert opportunity came a-knockin' and it was more of what I had been seeking: directing the firm's technical endeavors during and beyond its transition to managed services and holistic systems consulting.

I'm gratifed that I was able to catch employers' eyes with blind submissions of my resume and job applications (albeit after two months of crickets), but I'm ecstatic that I stumbled into an opportunity that suits me very well.