Do I Need a Recruiter?
Thoughts on leaving leadership in search of new opportunities.
Last week, with the unwavering support of my wife, I left what many might consider a “dream job.” Actually, I may have left what was my “dream job.” I was able to help grow a business in all of the ways I’d wanted, and the leadership at Sanborn was incredible. That sinking feeling of a recent breakup remains fresh in my mind, so I’ll dispense with the emotion and get to the point: I have absolutely no idea what I should do next.
My last eight-plus-years have been a rollercoaster filled with learning, growing, marriage, parenthood, and about 12 moves back-and-forth across the Isle of Manhattan, The Five Boros, the Midwest, the East Coast, to Texas, and back again. I have no real regrets, and I’ve managed to maintain the relationships that matter most to me. Success, if thusly defined, has been mine, persistently, for nearly a decade.
I got pulled aside by my good friend and owner of the company three weeks ago. It was a “why don’t you have a seat, we need to talk” conversation whose content and character wasn’t surprising. I pushed the “eject” button.
Things were changing. The specifics are neither appropriate for an open forum nor mine to share, but I had made a decision in the last few years that hinged on that moment. When it came my path was clear, and it was divergent from where I had spent many years in happiness.
This same gentlemen married my wife and I in Central Park. We built products and campaigns and cutting-edge stuff for our clients. We built them together irrespective of distance. The team we’d assembled over the years, through thick-and-thin, were my friends. He created paternity and maternity leave policies as my fellow teammates (and I) started our families. He gave us all the freedom to work remotely. He did this all as a small business and at great risk to the enterprise he’d built.
I’m genuinely humbled and grateful for what I’ve had. I have no doubt their next moves will be more marvelous than they can imagine right now. I’m proud to be a part of their heritage. I’m excited to watch them grow.
I woke up Monday morning without a Slack conversation to join, an email to answer, or a service outage to examine. I sat down at my keyboard and went through my standard routine: checking headlines, Product Hunt, tech newsletters, and glancing through Medium. I wrote some contracts for the work I’ve managed to pull together these last few weeks. I sat and talked with my wife for longer than usual. It was a good day.
My best days should look like this, and I’m searching for a place to bring my talents to bear while living a full life.
I could strike out on my own (as I have started doing), but I thrive in collaboration and discourse. I’ve got video production work, web development work, consulting work, and “grunt” work lined-up, and I’m well prepared for all of them. Still, I wonder if there’s a place looking for someone like me. I’m having a tough time finding someone who looks “right.”
For years I tried to find a recruiter with whom I could search for talent. I had little success, and I ended up doing it all in-house. We had a lot of “hits” and a few catastrophic “misses,” but on balance it was the right move for us. Trying to work with an outside recruiter felt counter-productive given the tools available on the market and our specific criteria. Now, this hiring-manager-turned-self-employed-human can’t seem to identify opportunities on the “other side”.
I think I need online dating for companies and prospects. Or maybe a matchmaker to help tie it together.
If I had to pose questions on my career-dating profile, it’d go something like this:
I wonder if there are companies looking for a “Jack of all trades” leader–one who’s comfortable at a command-line and talking to the CTO of Turner.
I wonder if there is a place that values remote work and trusts its team to make the right decisions for the business.
I wonder if I’ve aged-out of engineering, or if I’m not looking at the right opportunities.
I wonder who knows the last part of that idiom, “Jack of all trades, master of none…”
If you’re out there, please let me know you exist.
If you’re a recruiter and you can help, I’m all ears.
In the meantime, I’ve got “grunt” work to do before I pick up the boys from school and get back to the business of living.
