Executive Recruiters Lying About Seattle? (Everett: student loan, employment, bankrupt)

[homesinseattle]

Hi navywife, Does your husband know Captain Patrick Kelly? Great guy, I helped he and his family a few years ago, here is his bio: CAPT Patrick Kelly

Your husband sounds highly qualified, I think you need a new headhunter. Many of us love it out here and wouldn't live anywhere else. Sounds like you are excited to come back. Good luck in the search!

[Canamlian]

Has he looked at T-Mobile? They've made a pledge to hire veterans (although not necessarily at the executive mgmt level) and the CMO is a West Point grad.

Making a jump to executive management straight from a non-business background may be asking a bit much.

[homesinseattle]

navywife, Boeing indeed does have a long history of hiring people with military backgrounds. On the real estate front, don't be dismayed, people in your price range are successful every day. You just need to understand the way things work and have a good strategy.

[perigee]

Boeing might be a great fit, just be warned they are notorious for massive layoffs, so you will want to insulate your family against a sudden job lose, having a large mortgage could eat through savings pretty quickly.

Seattle is great for a variety of reasons, but you should come up for a visit before settling on it, traffic has gotten a lot worse since you have left.

Get a new headhunter and see what is available here and elsewhere and don't forget to network with officers who have left and now work in the civilian world.

Best of luck with everything.

[Ruth4Truth]

I would be more flexible, and look beyond Seattle, as well, OP. There's a nuclear sub facility on the Kitsap Peninsula at Bangor, there's another Navy facility out there, housing's cheaper out there, and there are some good schools in the area. I wouldn't rule it out. Employers will ask him how long he's ready to commit for; they'll think he's only taking a stop-gap job until he can collect Social Security, rather than being in it for a longer haul. So it's best to cast a wide net. In the Seattle area, there's always Boeing, and they have two locations.

I don't know if it would be worth finding a different headhunter, and interviewing a few of them, before signing on.

[Blondebaerde]

Wasn't aware one retained a specific "executive headhunter" anymore. Retained recruiters usually find you, not the inverse. They have no time for you if they don't have a specific role or roles in mind, the world moves too fast these days. And if you're not a precise fit, you're a misfit...here in Seattle anyway.

Close only counts with horseshoes and hand grenades anymore, this isn't 1960 when a sheepskin from Harvard and excellent track record of command in the USN were plenty enough to be heard out by half-dozen leaders in business, and definitely made an offer from several.

Friend of mine was retired out of the Army as an O-5, in command of hundreds of men at battalion in-theater Europe, Afghanistan, and Iraq for the Engineers. 24 years. Fortunately, he's well-paid with a pension for life, and he earned it.

Unfortunately, despite being a PE and Master's degree, it took him two to three years to find a real, long-term role. He aimed way too high out of the gate, and I suspect scared the Jesus out of every hiring authority he interviewed with. "Intensity" sums him up. Didn't bother me, but I'm not afraid of his intellect and leadership abilities. Most people are. Right, wrong, is irrelevant.

He was pretty upset about all of it a couple years. Eventually, he persevered, just last summer. He'll be fine, now, with relevant experience to back the years of command and degrees/certs. He remarks under his breath that he's "underemployed" but at low $100Ks, he's doing much better than "nothing" for several years.

Welcome to it. There won't be "executive" roles forthcoming, out of the gate, but perhaps Sr. or Principal to start.

[cmswazey]

Yes, ageism is alive and well here but I doubt anywhere else us different in this regard.

[Thom52]

Seattle area is definitely a young person's game with age discrimination becoming more blatant and aimed at younger all the time. My career was finally terminated involuntarily for me a few years earlier than planned, at the age of 63, even though I have a Senior mechanical engineering background with an amazing range of skills in high tech design and FEA/thermal analysis, CAD and Project Planning.

I agree though.....Just one headhunter? Yikes, you need to be searching yourself and have several good headhunters and professional level agencies lined up and searching. No one has an exclusive on you.

Good employment in the Seattle area, as long as you can serve up a 10 word description of a specific coffee quickly. Yes, a lot of "underemployed" people keep the stats from looking too bad.

[87112]

I don't know about you, but often I am glad to take a physical fitness job. I know they hold no prestige whatsoever but having done both white collar and blue, I would say pain from white collar inactivity ( chained to a desk) is MORE painful than aches from labor.

So when the white collar world dumps you due to age and only thing left is blue it might not be a bad thing.

[Minntoaz]

Is it worth to live in seattle? In short, no.