Here at the end of all things...

Several people have asked me if this is the end of the blog, since I cannot actively blog from the field of job hunting anymore.  Answer: Maybe?  Maybe I will just keep blogging for funsies about my new job and post-teaching life, or maybe I will continue to add thoughts about job hunting now that my work is to recruit other job hunters.  Now that I actually have work again, though, I don't know if I'll have the energy, but I'll keep you posted--pun intended, HA HA.

Apology, Explanations, and Breaking News...

A post in 3 Acts

Act I: Apology
To you few, you happy few, you loyal readers: I apologize for not updating you for an entire month!  Shameful of me, and there can be no excuses.

Act II: Explanations
In which Allie attempts to excuse herself anyway.  Comprising 3 scenes (explanations).

So, for those that care about me on a personal level that extends beyond my job search, you know that I am getting married (yay!) and have been desperately attempting to confirm some sort of time and location for the wedding.  We (fiance and I) have accomplished this!  At the expense of focusing on blogging.  End explanation 1.

Furthermore, I was on vacation at the beach and didn't bring my computer in an effort to liberate myself from the job hunt itself.  Peace and quiet for a week.  End explanation 2.

Last, I have recently moved!  Talk about things that are a serious pain in the rear: job hunting AND moving.  If you want to send me things, email me and I will give you my new address.  End explanation 3.

Act III: Breaking News...

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.  Not in the George Bush sense (maybe I might someday get a job), but in the truest sense of the words, because I am currently typing this post from my brand new job!

I have accepted a position here in DC.  I'm recruiting for a company that provides interpreters to immigration courts.  So I will spend my days trying to find people who speak Tibetan in San Francisco, or Vietnamese in Orlando, and who knows what all else.  I am really excited about this--I'm getting back to my love of foreign languages.  If you know anyone who is or could be an interpreter, please send him/her my way.

Oh Yeah, and the Interview

I suppose some of you may be interested to know how the interview actually went.  Well, I found myself to be very charming and intelligent, a model co-worker and an asset to any company.  I have yet to find out if my interviewers felt the same way.

Seriously, I have no idea how it went.  I don't think I gave enough specific examples, but I did answer all the questions without highlighting any major weaknesses.  Last time I interviewed for something I thought I did well but then it turns out I didn't, so I'm hesitant to feel any particular way about it for fear of jinxing myself.

I'll know by next week sometime.

Tears and Angst over Five Sentences: The Thank You Note

Having completed the interview on Monday, I was faced with the Thank You Note (TYN for short.  Think it will catch on as the next "lol"?)  Now, in this day and age, conventional wisdom--aka what my new interview book says--is to send an email TYN right away when you get home and then a snail mail TYN that same day, to arrive later that week, the exception to this being if you know the hiring decision will be made right away.  Since Company that Interviewed Me said they're seeing more candidates this week and next, I went with both types of TYN.

I like the email TYN, and even took the opportunity to attach my references at that time.  (Jennifer, if you're reading this, you may be getting a phone call soon.)  The snail mail version baffles me a little, though.  I mean, you've already said what you wanted to say...do you just write the same thing again?

Also, there is a WAR that you did not know about going on in the job hunting world!  It is between those who handwrite the snail mail TYN and those who type it!  According to some experts, everyone types these days unless you have beautiful calligraphic handwriting.  The other side argues that the handwriting is the magic touch that makes you stand out as a thoughtful candidate.

Not sure of which side of the war I supported, I handwrote the note because my printer paper is really cheap and I don't have any nice envelopes either.  I do, however, have cute little green thank you cards.  One of which I proceeded to fill out with orange pen.  In retrospect, I wonder if this was a mistake and I should have gone for the cheap paper and boring envelope option instead.  Oh well, at least my TYN will stand out.

I have had several other interesting networking sorts of calls this week and am speaking with a potential employer by phone later today, so take hope, o Best Beloveds!  I may find a job sooner than we had anticipated.

Pre-Interview Nerves

Guess who has an interview tomorrow?  Me!  Haha, you probably got that one right.

After having done NOTHING AT ALL for about a week now, thanks to school being over and my lovely fiance's family beach vacation and some of my bestest friends in the whole wide world being in town, it's time to get back to reality, which means job stuff.  I spoke with a connection last week and got an interview at a super cool company for a job that I may or may not be good at or interested in.  I suspect the interview will clear up some of these confusions.

I ran into a friend on the metro the other day who has also been through the job search wringer recently, and he recommended a book called Sweaty Palms: The Neglected Art of Being Interviewed (Amazon link, if you're curious).  I am hoping to pick up this book today in preparation for tomorrow!  If I find it, I will let you know how it is, reading public.

Feel free to post your own interview tips or words of encouragement :)

A Detour into Metablogging

Blogging about blogging, that is.  Sounds boring.  But several people lately have proposed that I make a career out of blogging, meaning that "Allie's Job Hunt" would actually be ended by "Allie's Job Hunt," which was started by my job hunt.  This sounds like the type of catastrophic paradox feared by Doc Brown in Back to the Future.  To quote the ending, where--spoiler alert!--Doc doesn't die because he taped back together the letter he tore apart that Marty wrote him warning about the Libyans:
Marty: What about all that talk about screwing up future events? The space-time continuum?
Doc: Well, I figured, what the hell?

Indeed.  So here I am, talking about blogging as a career.  Or if not a career, a money-making side project.  I'm looking for suggestions--what is an unfilled niche in the blogosphere, if such a thing exists?

It worked for another girl named Allie, (also a blonde former competitive runner (although she was better than I ever was)), author/illustrator of my current favorite blog Hyperbole and a Half.  She employs sort of a David-Sedaris-meets-Tucker-Max-meets-Calvin-and-Hobbes-meets-a-five-year-old approach to creating her niche.  I'm not funny enough for that, so suggest something else.

Networking

I never thought I was quiet until I started teaching.

Now that I know that I am actually not all that outgoing, especially compared to my students, I realize that the ability to network is not my strongest attribute.  It's really one that I should develop, too, because as people say, sometimes it's all about who you know.  In fact, according to the highly reliable source Yahoo HotJobs (in this article, "Networking Tips for Shy People"), 58% of poll respondents said networking helped them land their job.  Though math is not one of my particular strengths either, I can tell you that's more than half!

So what's a shy girl to do?  According to the aforementioned article: attend big events, set goals of talking to five new people at said events, etc. etc.  Can do.  Lucky for me, in some cases, parents will also network for you!  Thanks, Mom and Dad, for knowing cool people to hook me up with even though you live far away.  The District of Columbia is a well-connected place, and getting one's foot in the proverbial or literal door can be a highly profitable exercise.

Really, I just want to say that I am grateful for the opportunities that my friends and family are helping me find, and I am excited for whatever comes next.  A few people pointed out to me that I sounded sad in yesterday's post; be reassured, my friends.  Today is a brighter day, though the weather here is dreary...after all, it's my birthday!  And the last day of school!  Email me if you want to celebrate.

Priorities

Sometimes I worry that my teaching job has really burned me out.

For two years, as I worked looooong hours and suffered various abuses from students and administrators, I longed for a more straightforward job.  Answering phones, maybe, or filing papers.  Thus I have found myself attracted to these administrative sorts of job openings, not because I think they're easy, but because it seems like I would have so much more control over how my day went.  And hopefully I would be able to leave my work at work and have some sort of a life after 6:00 p.m.  Also, it's extremely tempting to take the first job that comes along (if or when I am offered one), because as we all know, jobs are precious these days; the job I have the best chances at right now, according to my inside sources, is an administrative assistant sort of gig.

But I've always wanted to contribute something interesting to the world.  So here, at a crossroads of sorts in my career, is taking a job that isn't fascinating to me selling myself short?  I'm tired of waiting to start my career.

Should I do anything so I don't end up doing nothing, or should I hold out for something great?

But, troublesomely, I'm scared of things that might be great because I'm so tired.  After all, as my father is fond of quoting from one of the best movies of all time (A League of Their Own), "It's supposed to be hard.  If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it.  The hard is what makes it great."  Great jobs require great effort and great people, and I've lost my confidence in my ability to be great or put forth a great effort.  I'm sure that's temporary, since I'm usually pretty full of myself, but it does make the job hunt more challenging.  I'm lost in a sea of conflicting priorities.

A Combination of Work Experience and Unadulterated Awesomeness

I have recently been introduced to the phrase "combination resume."  I am woefully ignorant of most of the rules of resumes, I fear, and this particular gem had escaped me.

In case you, too, are unaware of the combination resume, here is a primer.  It takes the standard reverse chronological listing of job experience (which, taken alone, is called a "chronological resume") and puts it on page two, following page one's listing of career skills and accomplishments in a more general sense.  This page, taken alone, is called a "functional resume."  I had heard of the functional and chronological formats before, but was unaware that, by putting both together, you have an entire new species of resume: the Combination.

Now, the combination resume seems sort of like cheating to me.  First of all, I thought the cardinal rule for someone my age was ONE PAGE ONLY.  And I hate violating cardinal rules.  Second, isn't the point of picking functional or chronological that you want to showcase your talents in the best way possible in a short space?  So the combination resume is not brief, and you don't get to hide anything that you are concerned about.  I guess that's the opposite of cheating, since it seems like a terrible idea.

And yet I am curiously drawn to it.  By listing my work experience chronologically (teacher...teacher...teacher), it sounds like I am only qualified for teaching jobs.  But the functional resume, to me, screams, "I don't want you to know where I worked or what I did, but here are some things I swear I'm good at."  So the combination seems to mitigate this problem slightly by stating in a calm tone, "Here are some things I'm good at, and here is where I was good at them."

After having learned the ins and outs of combination resumes, I am working on reformatting mine so it will be the bomb.  Now I just wish that my resume would combine with a sandwich.  I'm hungry.

Contenty, the 8th Dwarf

My mom says I shouldn't be grumpy, which made me think of Grumpy the dwarf (duh).  She's right; no one wants to read about someone who complains all the time--although FML seems to have done okay for itself, but that's beside the point--and anyway, I'm really not grumpy in real life.

So in an effort to become Contenty rather than Grumpy, I present you some funny stories about job searching:

[crickets chirping]

Hmmm.  Coming up a little short on that.  The truth of the matter is, there's not a whole lot of fun to be had in the job hunt.

I think this is especially true in the Age of the Internet.  Back in the day, maybe I could have gotten a kick out of putting my interview suit on and charging a business I liked, refusing to leave the office until I had a job offer, etc.  I suppose I could still do this, but to be honest with you, I can't even figure out where the offices of some of the companies I'm looking at are located.  We are so entrenched in technology that written applications are discouraged!  Saves me stamp money, I guess, but aren't we missing out on the feel of resumes printed on special heavy paper with the expensive ink setting?  The satisfaction of sealing that envelope and being proud of its contents?  The "submit application" click doesn't taste like anything and leaves me distinctly unsure of whether my carefully typed cover letter went anywhere at all.  At least the slam on the blue mailbox cover makes you feel like, at minimum, the mailman will look at your application.

And here I am whining again.  I'd prefer to call it being nostalgic.  I swear, I'm Contenty, not Grumpy.

PS: Yes, I know there is a dwarf named Happy, but I prefer Contenty because being Happy all the time would somehow cheapen the experience of true joy, I think.  So there.

How I Learned HTML in Five Minutes

Another day, another job application.  This particular organization claims to receive a flood-of-Noah-style deluge of job applications every minute.  I think they therefore intentionally make their website as user-UNfriendly as possible to discourage the masses from applying.

So, I tried to paste the plain-text version of my resume into the resume box of their online application.  Believe it or not, my resume came out looking crappy.  Really crappy, like one long sentence with lots of ?s for unknown characters in the middle.  And instead of helpful buttons for formatting (thank you Blogger) or even complicated looking directions for formatting, this application site offered...nothing!  Only a sad, lonely, text box.  So I googled "html formatting line break" and learned how to split my formerly beautiful resume into lots of little paragraphs.  Then it looked slightly better.  I don't feel very optimistic about the prospects on this one, though.

More on the senses of futility, despair, and vulnerability that accompany job hunting later, when I'm less annoyed.

Brave New World

I'd like to consider my recent life decisions brave rather than stupid.

I don't like my job (high school English teacher), so I'm quitting.  Effective at the end of June, a.k.a...now.  And I don't have another job lined up.

"What?" you say, "Why would you do that?  My [husband/mom/best friend/dog] got laid off because of the recession and you're giving up a perfectly good job with benefits?!?  Are you [crazy/spoiled/really that unhappy]?"

Crazy: Maybe a little.  Spoiled: Not really; I come from a privileged background, but I work hard for the money I have, and my teaching salary is on a twelve month scale so I'm still getting paid.  Really that unhappy: Yes, I really am.  With my job, at least.

Not because I don't like my students...well, it's complicated.  My issues with teaching would be a discussion for another blog altogether.  For here, let's just leave it at this: I'm quitting my job and I don't want to be a teacher for my next job.

Thus, I am...(dum dum dum) JOB HUNTING.  The bane of every recent graduate's existence.  Everyone's been there, and we all know it sucks.  So I'm writing this blog for several reasons:
1) Maybe someday, aliens who arrive after the extinction of man will read this blog and learn more about our current economy.  It's a period piece, like Up in the Air.  Or maybe they'll just feel sorry for me.
2) I think there's a universal truth to be found in job hunting: we all wish we knew how to find a job that was awesome in both content and salary, and we wish someone else would find it for us.  So here's a chronicle of my attempt at finding it on my own; maybe you can copy me if it works out.
3) Hopefully if you're reading this, you know someone who's hiring and you'll refer me to them.  Thanks in advance.