I’ve always been of the opinion that it doesn’t hurt to pass my resume around, to see what the current market is like and test the water and see what I’m worth. I figure, what’s the worst that can happen? You get a job offer and have to make a decision?
Last year, a former manager at my company was looking for some support people to fill positions in the company he went to, and I passed my resume along to him wondering if I could stand a chance at getting an offer. Actually, with some arguments in my favour, I got a really decent offer at much higher than I make, but Symantec countered with something less than the offer. Considering the options, I felt like I should stay, even though the money was less, as the new position didn’t feel as stable and required more travel, plus the benefits wouldn’t be as good. Hey, money isn’t everything, right? I spent some time regretting losing out on that extra money, but also this decision allowed me to move into a new family of products to support, and that has been really fun to be part of, even though it was annoying at times.
Well, in the last few weeks, a similar thing happened. A former manager contacted me and I passed my resume along, and one thing lead to another and I got called in for an interview last week, spending a decent amount of time talking to him about how things are going at work, and also talking to some of his team for a technical interview. Upon leaving the interview, I met another former Symantec person, whom also really enjoyed working at this new place and hoped I would get a position there. Then today I had a phone call with his manager, just as a “get to know you” type of thing. I typically feel like I don’t gauge interviews well, but I felt like these went well and I impressed him.
Now comes the problem – what if the worst thing happens?