Thursday, July 19, 2007

Taking stock

My letters should start reaching the desks of various Quality Assurance managers today, but I haven't scheduled any follow-up calls until next Monday and Tuesday. In the meantime I submitted a résumé to yet another company yesterday, and I printed up an application for a "dream job" today. (Other people may see it as a "pointless menial retail job", but it's actually something I've always wanted to do.)

I decided to sit down today and tabulate all of the résumés, job applications, and letters of inquiry I've put out there. And...well, maybe I shouldn't have. It's a pretty depressing list, because as I look at each job I remember the hopes and anticipation associated with it, the way I tried to imagine myself in each position. That's a hard thing. For the past eight years I had built my niche in the DVD industry, inventing and redefining the job I was doing as I went along. For six years before that I did something that others had already invented and defined, but that had never been done before in my company.

Now I'm faced with an unknown future in an unknown environment, so projecting myself into each job takes a supreme effort. It's exhausting, frustrating, and, over and over again, disappointing.

But I have to keep trying. What's the alternative?

The following employers are currently hiring locally: Dollar Tree, Office Max, McDonald's...

In other news:

I reprinted another post on my spin-off blog A Monkey in the Garden. I like that blog. It's just my nature and gardening posts, so far all with pictures. I still have quite a few posts that I can reprint there. I may have to edit a few to remove non-gardening content, but that's OK. Maybe I'll go find something else to reprint on Unknown Failure, too. I also need to call to get an update for Beyond the Needle, and someone has asked for a write-up on A Blog of Nanticoke. I should give some attention to NEPA Blogs, too.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

DB:

I saw a job that might be a good fit, though it's a career change: http://www.journalismjobs.com/job_listing.cfm?jobid=802900

Bill at Bill's Notes

D.B. Echo said...

Thanks, Bill! Almost any job at this point is a career change. But it's the location change that's the problem. I am bound here by commitments and by family, and I can't just pick up and move. A job that requires extensive travel is entirely doable, a job that requires an extensive daily commute is less doable, and a job that requires relocation is out of the question.

Anonymous said...

I think that one of the worst things about applying for a job these days is that hardly anyone bothers to send out rejection letters anymore. So, even though by day 4 you realize they're probably not interested, you keep a little inkling of hope for a "yes" because you haven't actually heard the word "no."

On the other hand, I once got called for a job six-months after I sent the resume. I went for the interview and ended up getting hired!

D.B. Echo said...

Jen, I hear that same story over and over again. Ted Forth was just bemoaning it a few weeks ago. And I've heard the same thing from several people about getting callbacks six months after you've taken a job.

Just spent some time trying to work the system:

- Citizens' Voice bigfootnepajobs.com is apparently not working; it gets stuck in a loop when I try to upload a resume, constantly asking for my username and password.

- Times-Leader just repoints to Monster.com

- Monster.com is fairly useless.

- Careerbuilder lists a lot of jobs that I'm not qualified for or that are 50+ miles away.

AND my online resume at Pennsylvania CareerLink has STILL been viewed zero times since I posted it in April. I'm starting to think that place is just a false front designed to give the illusion of the state giving a damn. Eventually my unemployment will run out, and then I will officially no longer be on the unemployment rolls.

Todd HellsKitchen said...

Good luck in your search!

You'll surely land on your feet!