To date, I’ve cast 119 resumes into the great wind that is the Army’s civilian personnel system. When you’re dealing with that kind of volume, it’s impossible to tailor each one to a specific job opening. Your best hope is that if you through enough of them against the wall, maybe, somehow, some of them will start to stick. It seems that I’m at least starting to fall into that category now – where at least a few of those resumes have found their way in front of people who are actually doing the hiring.

Yesterday was the first job I’ve interviewed for since 2002. In the interest of not jinxing myself too badly, I’m won’t get into specifics about what or where, other than to say that I’m cautiously optimistic and seem to have passed through the first round enroute to a follow-on discussion with the potential uberboss. In theory, that should take place sometime before the end of this week. After that, it takes however long it takes for the selection and notification process to work its way through to the end. It’s not generally something that happens with great rapidity.

Assuming for a moment that I actually get an offer, a whole series of questions then immediately come into play – Am I willing to sacrifice grade for more favorable geography and will doing so irreparably damage my career? Can I sustain financing a condo in Maryland, a house in Tennessee, and another place to call home all at the same time? Maybe more troubling is the nagging fear that if I jump at the first offer, I’m closing the door on a more lucrative offer at some point in the future or the even more nagging fear that the next offer could be another six months in coming. It’s the kind of decision that’s easy in theory, but in practice, well, becomes fraught with any number of potential issues.

There’s no call to worry about any of those just yet, though. For now, I’ll be happy that I at least got one opportunity to make my case. What happens next is, mostly, out of my hands – but you can bet I’ll be looking to send out resume number 120 first thing tomorrow morning.