The Philadelphia Experiment

Living in remote locales reinforces the modern tendency to approach job hunting as an e-commerce activity. Sites like LinkedIn will remind you that job hunting requires person-to-person interaction, even while presenting a super-intuitive e-commerce style interface with lists of available jobs and 'Easy Apply' buttons which strongly implies otherwise. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest an e-commerce style job hunting strategy is ineffective: stories of people who have applied online for literally thousands of jobs, with little to no feedback, let alone success, abound.

Wendy and I recently found ourselves with a unique opportunity to break out of this 'clearly-failing-to-find-me-a-job' strategy of applying online for tech jobs from a minimally remote community. We recently installed both of our children, and some sizable chunks of our bank account, in American colleges, where they are now beginning to learn how to succeed as relatively autonomous adults. For the first time in 20 years we can contemplate living in places not dictated to us by the needs of our children, their schooling, and access to their extra-curricular activities.

In this context, we identified two drivers for what to do next. The first driver is to be genuine and true to ourselves. This is an opportunity to live in a place we truly wish to be, offering experiences we are eager to enjoy. The second driver is to do so in a place with opportunity for employment which aligns with our skills and experience.

When you put it that way, Philadelphia is a slam dunk for us. Wendy writes historical fiction novels about women who lived in Philadelphia in the time of the American Revolution. Philadelphia is also, according to Startup Genome, a top 25 startup ecosystem globally. USA Today ranks Philadelphia as the "Most Walkable City to Visit" in America. Emotional connection, availability of work, and healthy lifestyle options from the moment we open our front door make Philadelphia the obvious place for us to succeed in our next chapter.

So we moved to Philly.

My job-seeking strategy to take advantage of this wonderful change of circumstance is to shift from being extremely online to being extremely social. Local organizations like Technical.ly Philly, Philly Startup Leaders, and Philly Tech Entrepreneurs organize events weekly where people gather F2F IRL to meet, greet, discuss, and organize themselves and their collective efforts.

To be clear, my plan is not to simply begin attending events where my opening line is "Hi, can you give me a job?" I want to take some time to enjoy a long fall full of outdoor and patio events, in a vibrant city, making acquaintances leading to friendships, and hopefully, inevitably, to the opportunity to contribute to collective achievements as part of team of people I have come to like and respect.

That is the furthest thing I can imagine from the impersonal, transactional, online strategy I have, of necessity, been pursuing for the past year. I do not know if it will work. The only way to find out is to try. I am calling this my "Philadelphia Experiment."

I'm a full lifecycle innovation leader with experience in SaaS, ML, Cloud, and more, in both B2B and B2B2C contexts. As you are implementing your value proposition, I can take a data driven approach to helping you get it right the first time. If that seems helpful to you, please reach out. I'm #OpenToWork.