Thursday, May 11, 2006

Thursday

Pretty good day at work. The Technology department all went out after work tonight to shoot some pool on 11th street. I didn't realize how out of practice I have become.

Received an interesting email today from a recruiter. I haven't been looking for work since I started where I am now, but I still periodically get emails from recruiters who I suppose can't figure out that I haven't had my resume on Monster.com for eight months. This one was unique though, because I received it on my Gmail account. I have only had my Gmail account since August and I haven't done any public posting. Also, all of my job hunting was done using my Yahoo account, so it raised an eyebrow when I received email from a recruiter on my unpublished Gmail address.

The person signed the email identifying himself with a title of "Executive Recruiter", and claimed that "my name came up in a recent conversation specific to technical leaders in the area of Linux-based products". Again this is unusual because this is the first recruiter to specifically seek me out because of my Linux development background. He wants to have a conversation and provided his phone number.

Now I'm a bit curious. So what else do I do? Google him of course... The phone numbers are in California, which is odd because I had limited the scope of my previous job search to New York. A search on the person's name yielded that his most documented recruiting job is with Google.

I kind of look at Google like the girl that got away. When I decided to leave Netilla, I had posted my resume on Monster, and I got the usual flood of recruiters wanting me to interview. But I am really picky about where I work, so in the end I only sought out and interviewed with two companies: the one that I now work for and Google. Although I did three phone interviews and one onsite interview, I didn't give the Google opportunity the time required to see if it would work out. I had the job offer in hand from my current employer, I really liked the culture and the company, and so I took it. Part of me wonders how things might be different today if I had played out the whole process with Google.

For one thing, I wouldn't have had to buy my own goddam 24" monitor. :-)

It would be funny if he is in fact from Google. I really like where I am now. I think back to when I was first searching for work, and Google was at the top of my list. I would have left Netilla in a heartbeat for Google. But with my current job, I'm not sure at all. Things could really take off here, and I feel like I have become part of the family. I have a personal interest and attachment in seeing this thing work, and looking at the opportunities in the pipeline it could be an amazing ride.

Of course, I'm not going anywhere today. But it's interesting to ponder what would drive me to leave.