the job search grumbles

New to blogging...give me a break if I'm boring or whatever else.

But my frustration with the job search has actually catapulted me into action...well if you call blogging action. Perhaps unleashing my grumblies out into the netherworld of the Internet would be more accurate.

I'm still in my mid 20's, I have a B.A. and I worked abroad for a while, once my term of service was up I thought "I have a B.A. and I worked abroad, it'll be no problem for ME to find a job back home." Well 20 some applications later and nothing yet..is that a lot? It feels like a lot. Being abroad during the high point of the economic crisis allowed for a diminished view of how bad things are and also I was probably just really naive.

It's been about 4 months since I seriously got into the search, maybe in the grand scheme of things that's not long, but 20 different applications, some for the US government and some for independent organizations, seems painful in return for zero phone calls. Especially since it's not just resumes anymore, it's cover letters too. And a cover letter isn't just an introduction or little clip about you, it's about selling yourself, creating something that shines brighter and louder than the 787 other typical drab cover letters received. It's about going to the websites of various orgs or companies and getting a sense of them and incorporating that language into a little letter that's supposed to be no more than half a page...half a page to sell years of experience, the more you've done the harder it is. If you don't set off fire works and laser beams in the first few sentences your efforts of crafting a cover letter and tweaking that resume will be tossed into the bottomless pit known as the trash bin of that HR email address you and 498 other applicants sent their sales pitches to.

And there's the "waiting for the phone to ring" game, it generally goes like this: turn the cell phone on in the morning, wait pensively for the first minute to see if I have a voice mail message (I'm currently in the western half of the country applying for jobs in the east so there's a time difference you see), then comes the lack of beeps, chimes, and whistles...just silence, no message...ok moving along...then comes the willing the phone to ring with thoughts like "this has to be a sure thing," "this job is perfect for me," "how could they not have loved my resume and everything I put down on paper?" Late afternoon crawls along: "guess nothing will happen today." So mildly or quite dejected, depending on how long it's been since I've sent in the application I relent and decide I can have the rest of the day off and will pick it up where I left off in the morning, trolling job sites for anything resembling my "skill set," knowledge, and abilities then cringe when I see a master's degree is required to become a secretary...well that's what it seems like nowadays. Then the crafting and tweaking happens all over again and the same initial feelings of hope, accomplishment, and persistence fill me with a sense of peace like I've just opened another door to say "Hey...look! look at me! look at what I can do!" Ha, then the "imagining what the interview would be like" game unfolds...you're in for a real treat on that one...