I went to Dallas to celebrate my mother's 70th birthday, so I spent a LOT of time with my family within a 36 hour period.
I was telling my sister about my job search as we tooled around in her new convertible and she became quite frustrated with me about my fatalism regarding my job prospects.
Many people who know me are horrified to find out that I am applying for secretarial/administrative work.
My Mother: "But you have Master's Degree."
My Sister: "You can afford to wait for the right job."
My former manager: "You don't have to do admin work." (the emphasis on admin is the same as it would be if I had said prostitution.)
One good thing that I did was get in touch with a former manager and tap him for a job. He's recommended a couple at his company, but he's not the direct hiring manager, so we'll see where that goes.
I apply for jobs on Career Builder, Monster, Hot Jobs, Linked in, Solo Gigs, USA JOBS and I search the website of each company with a large presence here in Atlanta. I have applied for exactly 93 jobs, everything from Administrative Assistant to Account Director and I have received 4 emails. The emails tell me that I am not the one they chose to interview. I mean, I can't even get the interview.
At first it was easy enough to excuse the lack of movement on these resume submissions as "the Holidays." The first week of January you could dismiss the lack of movement due to "just getting back to work." But if I don't hear something soon from someone, I'm going to start panicking.
Oh, and it's not that I'm over qualified, or under qualified or anything like that, I customize my resume for each job.
So, is it "the economy" or is it me? It's something to think about. And that reminds me, the outplacement firm owes me a call.
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...I have applied for exactly 93 jobs, everything from Administrative Assistant to Account Director and I have received 4 emails. The emails tell me that I am not the one they chose to interview. I mean, I can't even get the interview.
Egads. :(
Ugh. Let me know if you want to get the energy flowing - it's Mercury Retrograde, too, so things are going to go SLOW.
Keep on keepin' on. And there's nothing wrong with admin - though I can say from experience that there's plenty wrong with how admin often gets treated.
I'd say it's the economy.
I'm curious as to how you "customize" your resume. I mean, let's say you leave out some of your educational credentials on jobs that might consider you overqualified on that count. There's still your employment history: they might see a long stretch with a firm and reckon, "Oh gosh, she's used to a higher level position."
Vice versa, let's say you play up your qualification and job history for a position that might be a stretch. You could be knocked out of the box if the employer wants Ivy degrees, or more dramatic climbing of the corporate ladder, etc.
My guess is that in a down economy HR-bots have an a huge pool of applicants, and they want to shrink the number of resumes they pass on to hiring managers to people the hiring managers would consider really exceptional or a pefect fit. They're likely worrying about their jobs, too: HR is a cost center and why have a big one when you've cut back—or even stopped—hiring for the duration? If you are still hiring, how does the HR-bot appear if it shows up with resumes that don't make the hiring manager salivate? "I think HR is slacking—so many good people out on the streets, and they can't give me outstanding people?"
My life improved immeasurably when I learned to blame society. :)
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