After being somewhat of a nomad and finishing up a year contract with Verizon as Chief Strategist, Emerging Technologies I decided to get back into the job market and really focus on a career and position I can see myself at long term.

I entered the job market with a polished resume and a high level of confidence. I’ve always been very passionate about user experience and even started a startup around personalized user experiences so I targeted my job search to that. The job search started out well and got into many job interviews though kept on being told I was over qualified. After a month of rejection after rejection I finally found myself very close to a job I was excited about. It was VP, User Experience for Nokia. I made it through all their long interview processes that lasted weeks and had my final interview with the entire design team. I gave a presentation, knocked everyone’s socks off and left feeling confident. I was a shoe in for sure! Then got the call… pause… heart pacing… and I was rejected. Ouch! I was told my experience was “too technical.” Another heartbreak was for CTO for Bebo which I got to the last interview and was told my experience was “too corporate.” Majority of my interviews went great, everyone was excited, then at the end was rejected because I was “over qualified.” This I’ll never get. I was so frustrated that I started to give up and figured I’ll just get an Engineering job since I could always get those easily. The experience was the same. Over qualified. Frustrated again.

I stopped looking for a week after the rejections were too hard to deal with and having to adjust to my broken ego. It’s always hard to look for a new job while you have a job since looking for a new job is a FULL TIME job.

I decided to turn my 4 page wordy resume into a small 2 page snapshot with catchy one liners. OMG that worked. Suddenly I found myself interviewing with jobs and companies that were more inline with my experience and what I was looking for.

After two months of interviewing I was fortunate enough to land several job offers. I had competing job offers from large fortune 500 companies and small digital agencies. After having 30+ rejections and 17 active interviews (4 soft offers, 6 hard offers)I narrowed my top choices to:

• Director, Global Content Strategy (social media) with Walmart in Bentonville, AK.
• CTO with Rakuten in Boston, MA.
• CTO with Flint in New York, NY.
• Sr. VP, User Experience, Rosetta in Cleveland, OH.

Since I was looking to plant my roots deep into my next job I seriously weighed the pros and cons into a list of 20 factors. My Interest, Ashley (my dog), people in the company, the team, collaboration, work environment, health benefits, salary, industry impact, industry networking, job growth, city: coolness, city: cost of living, city: making friends, commute, learn from, job skills, perform happy, job security, other.

Even though I wanted to stay away from corporate america and the fact that Walmart was in Bentonville, AK (not a big city) my ego wanted that bragging rights of being a Global Director at the largest company in the world. I knew that I shouldn’t let my ego get the best of me. It hard to do some serious soul searching to make myself not take the Walmart offer. Then it came down to Rakuten, Rosetta, and Flint which all where executive jobs. I was VERY impressed with the Flint team when I interviewed with them in person and was excited about their collective experience and passions though Flint was paying almost $100k a year LESS than the other jobs which meant I would take a SERIOUS pay cut. I stopped considering Flint then put my focus on Rakuten and Rosetta. The executive Rakuten team was impressive and so was the team of developers. Throughout my career I always felt like I was pigeon holed into just “technical” which this job with Rakuten would have been so I then moved onto Rosetta. Interviewing with Rosetta it was the classic case of big agency and I could tell my position would have been in the middle of tons of internal politics since I was told other VPs were passed up for the role.

So now I had to choose. Flint New York (who I was referred to by recruiter rock start John Artz) was my top choice simply because of the team. Those who know me well know that I think it’s the team that makes a company successful. The Flint team seemed to be genuine and passionate about their roles which was very refreshing. I was still struggling with the major pay cut I would have to take to work at Flint. I reached out to my close friends and had mix opinons. After my divorce I got a tattoo that says “On a Journey of Peace” which is a constant reminder to be a man of peace and not focused on living large and fast. I know in my core that Flint was the best choice. It was a big risk for me to work for such a small company though I knew it would was the right choice.

After moving to New York and working with Flint for 2+ months I am glad to say I made the right choice. I am constantly impressed with my coworkers.

James Summerfield (CEO) has such a driving passion to be genuine with clients and to help clients achieve top quality (vs quantity). He gives us a confidence that the respect for clients and growth of the company is his main charter. I’m looking forward to learning a lot from him.

Oscar Valdez (Creative Director) is like a magician. Recently there was this webpage that looked dull and I had doubts it would look good since the content was so minimal. In one day he worked his creative magic and when I saw the results… I hugged him.

Marissa Frydman (Production Director) is the glue that hold us together and keeps the gears in our machine run. I’m impressed with her ability to plan and execute a project from beginning to end and having a deep understanding of each component of a project. She sees the talent in each of us, some talents we may not even see in ourselves.

Christina Summerfield (Client Services) brings a sense of care and warmth to the company. She understands our clients to the core and helps us shape our relationship with our clients to be personal and genuine.

Jessica Spraos (Strategy). I’m most impressed with Jessica. She has a contagious passion to learn from the team and has a high integrity for our clients and the work we product. She’s a young spirt with an old soul.

I love my job as it’s very strategic and big picture thinking. Those who know me well know that I’ve always been on the cutting edge of technology and to work at a company that thrives on the cutting edge is a perfect fit. I love how we sit in a room and brainstorm and strategize, feeding off of each other’s talents. I also feel flattered that everyone has a high value on my opinions and feedback. It’s great to work with a team where we ALL have respect each other.

Just like a movie that has great casting, I feel that way about Flint. We all have a perfect chemistry that makes us a well oiled machine. With that analogy I feel like I’m a veteren actor who has been in plenty of movies, some big blockbusters and some indie films and my role with Flint is a movie that has a compelling script, great fellow actors, and we are all confident that we are in an Oscar winning film that will define our legacy as actors.

I also love how I found an awesome apartment close to work so I could easily bring Ashley to work. Everyone at work loves Ashley. :)

To summarize those who are looking for new jobs my advice would be to make that choice that is inline with what you’re most passionate about and to work it a team that shares that passion. Your career should NOT be about money, title, or position. it should be about what makes you happy. If you can find a job that makes you enjoy and get paid for it… what a wonderful life that would be.

I’m grateful that I’ve found mine.