Friends, family and people who follow me on LinkedIn know that I lost a job back in March 2025. It was bittersweet: I really liked the people, but our priorities weren’t aligned. Add to that: because of significant cuts to post secondary education funding in Ontario (or lack of needed increase based on numerous factors) and a cut to the amount of international students allowed in Canada, being a part time professor at Durham College “on page seven of nine on the seniority list” (as I liked to say because Star Trek) took away any chance of continuing to teach any time soon.
It was a tough finding a new job, partially because of being in the age of immature AI. Reports of ageism on certain hiring platforms, AI filtering because of either missing keywords to be shortlisted or having keywords that were undesirable to hire were no doubt part of my and other’s issues with even being seen by a human. Those issues on top of potential employers ghosting candidates whether or not they were interviewed, which is par for the course. Personally, I had a real hard time finding jobs that fit with my mix of technical skill and joy of teaching.
I’ve been posting on LinkedIn about manager-related topics, and shared some posts and commented on a few people’s posts about the new realities of job searching. That caught the eye of someone at Paper Leaf based out of Edmonton. Not dissimilar to my previous employer, but much more up my tech-stack-alley: WordPress, Laravel, and a good dose of care for accessibility. They’re larger but also similar in clientele, focusing on government, health care and higher education.
Returning to this post six months after I started writing it, I did get the job as Development Manager at Paper Leaf. It’s been challenging. Much of my experience as a manager previous to this position is how I don’t want to be as a manager, but very little hands-on experience in ways to be a manager. With the help of senior leadership at Paper Leaf, I’m learning.
What’s in a name? Not much when the first 5 people that have the same name are either more famous, or to be more industry-specific, higher up in Google rankings. But for the people I know, love and/or interact with on a daily basis… I hope that they see I just want to help, teach, learn and somehow support my family while doing all that.
Post Featured Photo by Hunters Race on Unsplash
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