I've been looking for my next role for a few weeks now, and it's an interesting time to be looking! Trying to do some of the recommended things to find work, but it's slow, and often feel like I'm posting into a void. The last few months before I finished at my last company were incredibly intense and stressful, it was a chaotic and difficult environment. So it's been good to have some time to recover from all of that. I have loved having time for hour long walks with our dog, catching up with friends and being creative. The job search side has been less fun! I've applied for a few things where I thought I was a good match and have been rejected or don't hear anything. I'm trying to upskill and pivot from a traditional test manager role to modern quality engineering by learning test automation, and increasing my technical skills in api testing/accessibility/performance testing/testing with ai. There's so much I could potentially learn, what skills do you think I should focus on? This week I took the plunge to upgrade claude to cowork and code, to make my job search more efficient and to code an app to create automated tests for. Using cowork to create the app is going well, going step by step, and asking lots of questions. I'm less impressed with cowork for my job search/career pivot project. It was good at asking questions about my cv where details were too light/or my impact wasn't clear. It's not been so good in setting up a daily task to identify roles to apply for or companies to speculatively apply to. Still working through these challenges. Cowork hasn't really saved me any time yet on this, just given me another thing to sort out and test!! I've updated my cv, multiple times over the last few weeks, and have created a version with cowork this week. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the following areas: - I'm in my mid 50's, a couple of years ago I had a career coach who advised that I shouldn't include all my experience or the numbers of years I've been in testing. Since then I've put 20+ years in my personal statement. In one of the chats with claude cowork it told me I should put 26 years as I'd earned it and should own it! Have discussed with my husband and he's not sure I should be so specific. - Should I include my interests? Does anyone pay attention to these. - For leadership areas: should I include something around the challenges of leadership and managing teams?

Hello everyone, This is my first post in the group, and @Sue Black 's recent message encouraging us to ask for help gave me the nudge to share where I’m at. For those I’ve met at firesides and recent catch-ups, you’ll know I’m currently exploring my next career opportunity. After nearly 20 years building and leading Talent Acquisition (Recruitment) teams in the tech sector, I expected the market to be challenging but stepping back into it after a leadership restructure has been a real eye-opener. It’s a competitive landscape right now, particularly at leadership level, with fewer roles and a high volume of experienced Talent Acquisition professionals in the market. I’ve been approaching my search proactively, refining my CV and LinkedIn profile, leaning into my network, attending events, upskilling (particularly in AI), and staying open to permanent, interim, and fractional opportunities. Like many of you will have experienced at different points in your careers, it’s a process that requires resilience. I’ve had some great conversations and been fortunate to progress through a few rigorous interview processes, including reaching final stages, which has been encouraging...although sadly not quite converting into the right opportunity just yet. What I’ve really valued over the past few weeks since I joined the Women in Tech Power Network in April, is the sense of support and generosity within this group. It genuinely feels like a community that wants to see each other succeed and I am so grateful to @Amanda Parkin for making the introduction. So, here I am asking for your help, whether that’s introductions to your network, insights into organisations that are in growth mode and investing in recruitment, or simply a conversation. I bring significant experience partnering with senior leaders, scaling teams internationally, and building high-performing recruitment functions, and I’d love to bring all of that into my next role.

I just wondered on the off chance if anyone is going to The Hague for the summit next week, if so would be wonderful to meet you in person. It’s my first time attending.

Hi everyone. I'm working on a project that needs to aggregate data from a number of government data sources and other APIs. @Sue Black you said you had some contacts at GDS you could send me. Does anyone have any other contacts, or experience of aggregating multiple external data sources?

I'd like some suggestions for staying cool. Bought a wool duvet at 2.30am this morning in sheer desperation. Anyone else hating this heat?!