Ryan's Trips to Houston and Vicksburg...

...and our journey to finding a job. :)

 

Houston hotel room

Throughout this semester and last semester, Ryan has been working on getting a job lined up for when he graduates. He handed out his resume to different companies at the BYU job fairs and we've done some online searches to see what companies might be good to apply for. 

Houston hotel room

There have been three main companies that have been interested in Ryan. The first was Exxon. They took Ryan and I out to dinner, along with several other BYU students and their spouses and we basically had a dinner-interview and were able to ask them questions while they got to know Ryan and the other students better. If Ryan had been accepted for that job we would've had to move to Houston, so that's when we first started considering how we felt about moving to Houston. They gave Ryan a call a few weeks later and turned him down, but Ryan's not so sure he wanted to work with an oil company anyway, so we were okay with that.

In October, Ryan got an e-mail from Goodman (they do HVAC and Amana products), which is also in Houston, Texas, saying they'd like him to apply for a position they had open as a Solutions Analyst. So Ryan applied and they asked him to schedule an interview with them, on campus, while they were in town. The interview went pretty well and they asked him to come to Houston to have a tour of Goodman's facilities and several more interviews. So, in the middle of November Ryan went to Houston. They paid for the flight, a limo to pick him and two others up from the airport, and the hotel for one night. Ryan had a nice time, and got to see the company and meet some of the people he'd work with. Those interviews went well, but then we had to wait for two months for them to make their decision. 

Mississippi hotel room

Meanwhile, Ryan gave his resume to a couple other companies, in case things didn't go well with Goodman. ARA (they do infrastructure consulting, etc.) in Vicksburg, Mississippi became interested and had an interview with Ryan over the phone. That went well, and they also asked him to come to have an all expenses paid trip to Vicksburg to see their company and have another interview. So, about two weeks ago Ryan went to Vicksburg. Just a couple days before he left though, he got a call from Goodman saying they wanted to offer him the job and that they'd send him the details in an e-mail by the end of the week.

Mississippi hotel room

Ryan's interview in Vicksburg went well and he came home pretty sure they'd offer him a job as well. Goodman was a little late in sending out their e-mail, so both the offers from Goodman and ARA ended up coming on exactly the same day last week. That was really good timing, because then we were able to consider the offers together.

We were pretty set on ARA at first, even though their offer wasn't as good as Goodman's. They seemed like the location and  job description we'd prefer. But, Goodman's location and job description were pretty good too. Each company had a lot of differences, but they each had a lot going for them. We corresponded with both companies making sure we knew what we were getting with each offer and there were one or two things we asked to change. We had a really rough week deciding between two really good options. We prayed about it everyday, fasted, compiled a pro's and con's list and used other ways of analyzing the two options.

Old train station in Mississippi

But we didn't come down to a decision we really felt good about settling on until Monday. One of the Goodman VPs called Ryan and talked to him about how much they really wanted him to come work for them. He then told Ryan he was going to have his boss, Sam (I can't remember if he was the president of the company or not, but whoever the boss of the VP is) call Ryan and talk to him. So, Sam called and talked to Ryan for a solid 15 minutes about how much they wanted him and how good he would be at the job and what's great about Goodman. That made us consider Goodman's job and the people he'd be working with a little more highly. 

Bridge between Mississippi and Louisianan

That night we spent an hour or two going over what each opportunity had to offer and came to the conclusion that Goodman's was the better offer, especially for this being Ryan's first job. Yesterday was not only an exciting day for us because it was our anniversary, but because Ryan made the call to Goodman and accepted their job offer. We're really looking forward to start this new chapter in our life and move to Houston during the summer.

Thank you, for everyone whose been so supportive of us in this and wishing us luck. We hope we can all still keep in touch pretty well with skype, kinnect, letters, and e-mails, and of course visits. :)