Here I go again into the godawful world of job searching…
It’s for a better reason that before really, my girlfriend has a job in Orlando and I want to go down to her, so I have a job right now, but is there any process more soul sucking than this?
I have a resume, but why the hell do I have a resume when I have to fill out an application to the job anyway where I fill in all the information on my damn resume. Oh what’s that? You want my resume at the end? THEN WHY AM I FILLING OUT THIS BULLSHIT FORM!?!!?
I get to wake up to an inbox full of “Jobs in your area!!” emails taht I neither want nor signed up for
I get an email in the middle of the day about my resume. “Hello Teacups, I found your resume and want to let you know of a premium sales position with American Family Insurance!” Oh wow! Thanks! I feel so special! Surely I’m the only one who got this email, and to sell insurance? It’s nature’s favorite job (outside of car sales natch).
Endless forms and stupid emails. Taxes I can do, Insurance forms I can do, the closest to this is what? Buying a house maybe?
Yeah. I’m looking for a paycheck position after about fifteen years of self-employment, and it’s pretty humiliating to fill out yer papers like a widdle kid and be told you’re not qualified because you don’t have two years experience on something invented two years and a week ago. (Even though you have beaucoup experience at every aspect of the same thing - they just renamed it while you weren’t looking.)
It crushes your souls. Slowly. One rock at a time. I’m looking for a new job, and recently dodged a pyramid scheme. For the first time in my life I think I know where I want to live and what I want to do . . . I just haven’t . . . yet . . . gotten a job there.
I am very very lucky. Before I got this job a bit more than a year ago, I’d been out of work for 3.5 years.
This Friday I have my very first interview since getting the new job. And this time, I feel like I’m going to be interviewing them rather than the other way around.
And that’s all because I like my job and have no particular reason to leave it. They’ll have to give me exactly what I want to hire me, which they probably won’t but that’s ok too.
Looking for a job can really make your self esteem take a beating, but it only takes one place saying Yes to turn your whole world around with all kinds of opportunities. If you want soul sucking, try applying for some kind of government assistance: unemployment, food stamps, disability, subsidized housing…these people want to examine the undies in your crack. They want you to attest to, over and over, the fact that you can’t afford to live—on flickering computer screens using Speak nobody knows (because you always wind up Downtown at the Office), that’s what the state employees are there for…to come tell you what to do next like the people at Walmart working the self checkout lanes. And if you actually do qualify for help, you get a sheaf of forms to fill out again every couple months or so because of course—you must be lying and “we” didn’t catch you the first time but we’re going to trip you up now…
The moment I hated most was opening the letters that told me that another employer thought I was worthless and had nothing to offer.
But long before that I had decided that if there was one person in Australia with a job, who wanted to be a dole bludger (live on benefits), I would gladly take his job and pay tax to support him in the manner to which he wished to become accustomed.
I’m sure I could think of worse, but job searching is way up there. It may be the worst that doesn’t directly involve the health of you or a loved one.
I especially hate the calls from heavily-accented Asians who try to pass themselves off as local job recruiters. I don’t want to hang up on them in case it’s a legit position, but they’re usually too hard to understand.
What’s your career field, TCups? If it’s tech related, you could try contacting a Robert Haft Technology office in the Orlando area. Maybe they can set you up at Full Sail U and NXT, hee hee.
The thing is, with dating of any kind, there are levels of success. It’s not a black and white endeavor, in that you can get a date (level 1 success), have a good time on the date (level 2), get a kiss at the end (level 3), and so on. I suppose if you were hell-bent on getting married, you could look at every date that didn’t pan out into a marriage as a failure, but few people do that.
Job searching is pretty much that kind of all-or-nothing kind of enterprise- pretty much everybody is in it to get a job, and that’s it. It’s pretty much all-or-nothing.
IMO that’s why job searching is such a mentally corrosive activity- I can’t think of a way to reframe it in my mind as being an activity with lesser levels of success. Plus, the surrounding bullshit is so godawful that the whole thing is really aversive.
I mean, it’s bad enough to have to job-search, but having to deal with recruiters who call you up and want to chat during work hours for half an hour, only to reveal a job that doesn’t pay enough, or isn’t what you want to do is infuriating. Or sending out some absurd number of resumes and fill out interminably huge online job applications… only to never hear a damned thing back. It makes you feel like you weren’t even worth the time to say “No thanks.” to, which has a way of making you feel really low if you’re already discouraged by all this.
Thankfully, the last time I was unemployed, it was at the height of the boom prior to the 2008 recession, and I’ve kept the same job since. I’m not terribly happy, but at least it pays the bills, so I can take breaks from the job searching when it gets me down.
It gets truly depressing after a while. I do currently have a job, of sorts, but the hours are too low to possibly live on- plus my employer appears to be playing UK employment law bingo, it’s tricky thinking of a law he could feasibly break but hasn’t. But I can’t really prove it, so… On with the applications, and rejections.
If anything the ones where I’ve had an interview are the worst- at least the others aren’t personal.
Nothing at all. I’ve been searching for a while now. I am so lucky in that I have a job right now. But I just graduated and I really want to use my new degree but everyone wants experience which I can’t get without a job and I can’t get a job without experience…its brutal. My partner is extremely encouraging but it is depressing.
