John Hutchison
Previous job: Director of SaaS Operations and Compliance at SelectMinds
Previous Salary: $120K
Age: 36
Location: I live in Cold Spring, NY (50 miles north of NYC, population 2,000) but work in NYC. We moved here from Brooklyn about 2 years ago.
Education: Bachelors degree from Rochester Institute of Technology
Experience: Over 10 years of tech leadership experience, most recently focused on building and growing a SaaS organization that delivers social networks to F500 organizations.
Resume: http://www.linkedin.com/in/johnjhutchison
Mortgage is $3K/month
What's your plan for finding a new job?
I am going the very traditional route right now -- working my network to let people know I am out there looking. I made sure my LinkedIn profile is up to date, including sending our requests for recommendations. I am combing through job sites, including theladders, which is the only fee-based site I am paying for right now.
I am looking into finally getting some credentials that I have been putting off forever, PMP is at the top of the list. I have over 10 years of experience, but no credentials (my bachelors degree is not an IT degree) so I am sure I am not getting through the gatekeepers at any large organization. I am also trying to keep up with my blog (focused on SaaS for the enterprise) as a means to provide some public forum for thoughts that are relevant to my experience. I have no idea if any prospective employer would ever actually make the effort to read it, but it can't hurt.
Had any interviews or sent out any resumes yet?
No interviews yet, sent out plenty of resumes.
Have you had to change your lifestyle at all? If so, any tips for other readers in your position?
We saw this coming so we made our lifestyle changes a while ago. My tip; do the same thing. Start preparing now so you aren't totally unprepared if you find yourself in the same spot. We eliminated all unnecessary expenses and pared down the smallest budget we could live on. Everything we had above that budget went directly into our savings account. We were pretty brutally honest about what was necessary but were honest about what we could live with, so we did things like get rid of the cable TV, but kept our Netflix subscription.
We aren't eating out for dinner, etc. We are in as good of a position as possible in that we don't have any credit card debt, car payments, etc, just our mortgage. We wanted to come up with a set of boundaries that would help save as much as possible but not a set that we couldn't actually adhere to. It was and is pretty tight living but it has certainly helped us stay focused on living simply.
Any other general words of wisdom for those who are in or could be in your predicament?
I am not so sure that anyone should listen to advice from me, but like I stated before, living simply and saving as much as possible certainly can't hurt. If you manage to get through this downturn without losing a job or having your pay cut then you'll be that much better off by having some savings.
