Similar to the job boards – Monster, Indeed, LinkedIn – our company has an internal job posting system as well. It is the same as the external one, but employees actually get first crack at positions before they go external.

It is rather frustrating to apply to positions – a number of them – and be told “they have decided to go in another direction”. OK, so I’m not qualified for every position, but I was for far more than I was rejected for.

Each week, the “site lead representative” would send out, along with a number of other topics, a listing of currently available jobs. The system allows for filtering by location, so while all the positions available are listed, they could be filtered by city and or state.

Having access to this sort of system also required – assuming one wanted to take advantage of it – keeping ones resume up to date, just like for the official job boards.

There was a time in my career where I wanted to “move up the ladder”. But at some point in the not too distant past, I made a decision that I no longer wanted to do that. Part of it was the indirect frustration expressed by my manager, and part of it was my “I just don’t care anymore”. While I am well educated (MBA) and have a decade working for the same employer under my belt, I just knew that I wasn’t going to move up said ladder – and if I did, it would probably only be one rung anyway.

As retirement starts getting closer, I also made the decision to just stop bothering looking for a new position. While I might have been able to get one and wait out my time learning something new, I just decided it wasn’t even worth doing that.

This, like the external job boards, is something I shall not miss.