Moving on…What Should I Do Next?

13 October 2011 by 4 Comments

This is more an extended question than a post.  It is about moving on.

A bit of background.  In April of 2011, I resigned from my position as a Senior Network Engineer at a regional University.  There were many reasons, the most important being my own health.  Constant stress, mountains of unpaid and uncompensated overtime, and a series of illnesses attributed to long hours and poor lifestyle finally caught up with me.  Another consideration was that I was at the top pay level I was ever going to achieve in the organization – my manager was the level above me, so in essence there was nowhere to go but sideways.  Finally, there just didn’t seem to be any big challenges any more where I was.  After a lot of thought, I decided to leave.

I then began the seven months of accumulated long service and recreation leave I had, which will expire in a couple of weeks’ time.  I will then be unemployed for the first time in my working life.  I am not worried about that – I am comfortably situated financially, no wife, kids or elderly parents – and am intending to start seriously looking for work in the New Year.  I have burned through a series of certifications, and am intending to sit the CCIE Lab exam in a few months.  Plus, I have had a couple of recruitment firms call me out of the blue asking about my intentions.

I have spoken a lot with friends, family, and people in the industry but I am still not entirely sure where the future lies.  Contracting has its appeal, but permanent employment has its attractions, too.  Like everyone, I would rather interesting project work than day-to-day maintenance I have been doing for fifteen years, but I appreciate that there will be some of both in most positions.  I would like a challenge, and the ability to grow further.

So I am putting it out there.  I may be a bit unusual in the wider industry these days, having worked at the same place for over seventeen years, but it is not so unusual for the higher education sector in Australia.  What advice would you have for the job-seeker who has not had a job interview (on the scary side of the desk anyway) in many years?  What are the upsides and downsides of recruitment agencies?  Would you recommend the contracting or consulting path, or not?  Will I experience a culture shock moving from the public sector to the private?

Get a discussion started by leaving a comment below.

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About Matthew Mengel

Matthew was a Senior Network Engineer for a regional educational institution in Australia for over 15 years, working with Cisco equipment across many different product areas. However, in April 2011 he resigned, and is took seven months of long service leave to de-stress and re-boot before moving back into the job market. Currently working as the Network Engineer for a non-profit organization, he is studying for the CCIE R&S. He does Warhammer 40K miniatures painting for which he has little talent, but enjoys nonetheless. Astronomy is another interest, and he completed a Master of Philosophy in Astrophysics in 2005. He is on twitter infrequently as @mengelm.

  • http://datacenteroverlords.com/ tonybourke

    I think it might help to do something that a lot of people don’t do at your stage, and to figure out what kind of lifestyle you want to have. Do you even want to work full time? Do you want a job that involves travel? Or where you stay home? Do you want to work in a large organization, a small organization, or work as a solo operator? Do you want to mentor, volunteer, start side projects? 

    As a well cert’d and skilled network engineer, you’re fortunate to have a lot of options, and you can essentially design your life around your desires, instead of designing your life around your job. 

    It might help to just sit back and think, “wouldn’t be awesome if….” 

  • http://www.mplsvpn.info Shivlu Jain

    I think you have ample experience to start your own consulting firm rather doing CCIE. You can leverage your experience by providing consulting to other companies.

  • Lindsay Hill

    In your situation, I would probably lean to either contracting, or working for a consulting firm, where you are effectively contracted out to different organisations. This gives you exposure to a range of different projects, and you can manage how much you want to work.

    You’ve probably built up a good range of contacts over your career – talk to them. That’s generally the best way to find out what’s going on, and to get a job if you want it.

  • http://twitter.com/Mandelin Mandelin

    “I would like a challenge, and the ability to grow further.” From this one statement I would suggest you do some consulting work. Find a Firm that has a good reputation. I think what you are looking for is a project work. I have worked with a consultant from Accenture and he really enjoyed what he was doing. At the time he was helping my company integrate small divisional networks into one larger corporate structured network. He helped to plan, design, define and integrate our network. Along the way he said he met some really great people.