Weekly Update 11/22/25 to 11/29/25

It’s been a busy week, and a good one.

The most important news is that I finally heard back from the team in England. Things are moving in the right direction, and they estimate they’re about 90% certain this opportunity will pan out. Next week, they expect to give me access to a test environment along with a full year of support tickets. If everything lines up, this could be the start of something solid.

Beyond that, there have been plenty of other pots boiling.

On Monday, I interviewed with a company in California looking for someone with Infor FACTS experience. I spent four years working on FACTS in Providex, and I’m certified in FACTS 7.0 with 20+ years in Providex overall. But the current release is 9.x, and I haven’t touched it in two decades. Still, finding anyone who knows a legacy system like FACTS is rare, so I’m hoping the door stays open. They said they’ll get back to me early next week.

Two other recruiters reached out asking to schedule meetings. I responded to both, but I haven’t heard back yet.

A big portion of my week was spent working with my new friend Astra (ChatGPT). Together, we built two major new outreach lists.

The first is a list of 718 developers and recruiters who work with PxPlus (Providex), Sage 100 (MAS90), Infor FACTS, and other Business Basic variants (BBx, UniBasic, etc.). This adds to the 223 leads I had already compiled.

The second is a list of 107 end users who match the same markets and technologies.

That brings me to a total of 1,048 companies I can reach out to. I now have:

• 236 resumes queued for Tuesday
• 218 resumes queued for Wednesday
• 261 resumes queued for Thursday

with more to follow the week after. I only send unsolicited resumes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (the best days for response), and I try not to overload my email provider by sending more than 300 emails a day.

Astra and I also optimized my job-search workflow. We refined the search terms I use across job boards:

(Providex OR PXPLUS OR PVX)
("Business Basic" OR BBx OR BBj OR UniBasic)
("Thoroughbred Basic" OR "MAI Basic" OR "AddonSoftware")
("MAS 90" OR "MAS90" OR "MAS 100" OR "MAS100" OR "MAS 200" OR "Sage 100" OR "Infor FACTS")
("Systems Analyst" OR "Application Support" OR "ERP Support" OR "ERP Analyst")

Then we set up bookmarks to LinkedIn, Indeed, Dice, ZipRecruiter, and Glassdoor with the queries already loaded  25 bookmarks total. Now I can open all of them at once and review every board in a few minutes instead of a couple of hours.

We also built bookmark sets for:

• Gig work: surveys, testing, and small projects that bring in extra cash (UserInterviews, Userlytics, uTest, TestBirds, Respondent, UserTesting, TestingTime, Hotjar, Prolific)
• Bridge jobs:  short-term employment options while I look for a long-term role that fits my experience (We Work Remotely, Upwork, Freelancer)

On the content side, Astra helped me reorganize and optimize my blog (mrodell.blogspot.com) so Google can finally index it. I added ten older Christmas letters that weren’t previously posted, created chains between related posts, and turned on AdSense for some passive income.

We also launched my new website for Odell S Hathaway III Consultancy at:
https://www.phxrsng.net/

Since there’s a real possibility I’ll be working with a team in England, I applied for a new passport. But I received an email from the State Department saying they need more information and that they’ve sent me a letter detailing what they need. My guess is the issue is the photo—they took it at the post office, but the copy they handed me is so washed out I don’t see how anyone could use it. I wish they had noticed that before submitting it. Now I have to wait for the snail-mail request and get a new picture taken.

And, of course, this week was Thanksgiving. Dawn invited a friend and her family to join us. We had a lovely meal.

So yes—we are moving forward. Wish me luck. With a little luck and persistence, this job search will end soon.

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Next: Weekly Update 11/29/25 – 12/05/25
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