Great advise, Zach. I, too, do a lot of interviewing, or have over the years. Most have the same education backgrounds so what separates them from each other is being personable. Most of the time you only have upwards of an hour to talk with an interviewee. The ones I end up hiring have positive attitudes and are easy to talk with and connect with. If they don't blend in well with my current staff, I would never chance it.

Best of luck!
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Solid advice!
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Thanks for all the advice everyone! Still not really sure what direction I want to go, so I may just tend bar or serve for a few months while I figure things out. Just don't want to rush back in to going to a job I hate every day.

Plus, fall fishing is my favorite!
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If you have the savings, take a breath and see the world. You have a lot of time.
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As someone that is stuck interviewing a lot of people lately, don't over sell yourself. We're looking for designers and if I see one more person that says there were a "Senior" this or "Lead" that, that has no idea what they are talking about I will scream. Today we had a girl that graduated a year ago and the only exp she has is some non profit intern work, oh but she was the "Senior Designer". Overwhelmingly under qualified people wasting my time just ticks me off, granted it's the people doing the pre-screening that suck at their jobs, we've already had to speak to them 2 times about the quality of candidates they are sending us.

Oh sorry that turned into a rant, but yes, don't oversell yourself or along the lines of Mark's suggestion maybe you could become a competitive eater!
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So funny, we get that at our work too. New hire is "senior principal threat researcher" or "senior engineer" and they've don't even know our product yet (we are in DLP - Cyber Security). You look in our GAL, it's mostly chief's with little indians... I have not added or changed my basic title since I started there almost 5 years ago... Some are big on titles, but it's the actual job done and your experience that determines whether you are "senior" or not. Not your title.
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^^^^^ This. A lesson I wish I'd learned long before in my prior job.
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I've been at mycurrent job, I'm a carpenter, for 6 months now and I dont get paid to be a foreman. But for some reason Ive been in charge of a $400,000 additionin scarsdale ny.
Now , understand that I worked my way up by proving myself on numerous shitty jobs, and never touted myself as a lead carpenter.
In the last 2 weeks, I had 2 different new hires that were sent to work with me, that swore they were lead carpenters,that didnt knowthere ass from there elbows and neither knew basic construction. One guy made $2.00 more an hr than me but couldnt put a shelf up level.
he had to go. I think his firstwords to me on the job were, "you carry a ***** tape", cause he had a 35' fatmax and I use a 25' fatmax. This is because "hes a lead carpenter " and he does layout,whens the last time you laidout a 35' wall asshole?
Im 45 and he was 26, said he ran crews for 7 years prior.
my point being, Ive notice in construction that the ones who say they know everything and think they a re gods gift usuallydont know ****.
the older guys dont brag about how good they are, but the younger guys are all the best mechaics inthe world in their mind, but are just dumbasses
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^^^^ At least you had the smarts to cut him loose before you start losing time and money. ^^^^

Keep strict notes of what you did each week and the leadership responsibilities you took on during this build out. Next job you could be the real lead!
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