Category: Job Search

Don’t be ashamed to take time for yourself

Don’t be ashamed to take time for yourself

Life is stressful. Whether it’s work, lack of work, friends, family, or being in line at the DMV, stress is an inescapable part of daily life. There are some days when things are harder to deal with. Sometimes you are faced with a normal day but the things that have been on your mind weigh more heavily than usual. When you get to this place it can be hard to be productive.

Today I had a stressful day at work, and when I got home and started applying to jobs like I do every evening, I found it hard to focus. Instead of rewriting my cover letter I found myself thinking about my day and the fact that I haven’t had any job prospects in about a week. That’s when I put my computer down and turned off my phone.

When I get to that place I need to unplug and take some time for myself. In college I used to feel guilty about taking an hour or two to watch TV, read a magazine or sit under a tree somewhere. This is time I could be using to be productive and counteract the stress I’m feeling. I finally realized forcing yourself to work when you’re not focused leads to mistakes and inevitably more stress. If taking time off leads to productivity later, it’s worth it.

I realize you can’t take time off work during the day if you’re starting to feel overwhelmed, but taking a walk at lunch or even around the office can help reduce the worry until you can get home and do whatever relaxes you. For me, it’s a TV show or movie and a delicious dinner. I also like to turn my phone off for awhile to really focus on myself.

This isn’t something I need to do every day or even every week but everyone needs a reset, even if it’s a small one.

Job Boards

Looking for a job in the 2o15 involves a lot of time on the internet. Yes, you should also be talking to people and trying to network and all that stuff, but good old fashioned applying is now done online. That means job boards. They are wonderful and terrible at the same time and I’ve taken it upon myself to review some of the most popular.

Monster

I have a feeling this site is great for employers but not as great for wannabe employees. The keywords they have are very specific so you can’t put in something like “writer” or “journalist” and have results. It may just be geared toward people in other professions, but for anyone creative it is not the place. Once I finally get choices, it’s all for the same organization, so there must be some sort of sponsorship happening. I think chugging a Monster energy drink would be more helpful than using this website.

Indeed

Indeed is my go to, I check it first every time I sit down to apply. It’s easy to search, you can put on tons of filters like “relevancy” or “date.” These make it easy to find new posts everyday. Most of the time the search is really accurate even when you’re vague, but every once in awhile it brings up completely random and unrelated jobs. This happens to me about once a week, and I don’t know if it’s just the algorithm freaking out or if the site is trying to tell me to give up on the careers I’ve chosen. Either way it makes for a strange time. Another thing to keep in mind is that because the site is so popular a lot of people use it, so that means more competition, which is good or bad depending on how confident in your skills you are.

Simply Hired

This is an odd one. It feels a little quieter than the other two. Probably because they don’t have ads all over the place like Monster (Bro, what are you trying to prove?). Another site that can bring up just wacky results. Today I entered “Writing in Portland” and it brought up a biologist in Boston. Of course I opened it, but quickly closed the tab when the number one qualification was a degree in biology, who’d have thought? Like Monster, you see a lot of the same company, which is always a bummer to me. Many of the posts lead to other job boards which is annoying. If I wanted to see what those sites had to offer I would go to those sites, but they have a cool logo.

Elance

I have many thoughts and emotions about Elance, and they are mostly negative. For those who don’t know, it focuses on freelance and short time writing gigs. Something that is perfect for someone who needs some extra cash. However, they make it so impossible to apply to anything that I give up once a week. You have to make a profile, and unless you check the correct boxes you can’t apply to the posts. So you go back and change your profile the way they want it and they deactivate your account for two weeks to make the changes. I’m not a technology genius but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t take two weeks to update a website. Of course all of this pain and suffering can be avoided if you pay $10/month for a premium account. Elance, if I’m looking for jobs that pay $25 for 2,000 words I can’t afford to give you money every month.

LinkedIn

Not many people know that LinkedIn has job postings, but it does. It makes it really easy to apply because you can connect your profile directly to a job post and even mildly stalk the person who posted it. In my experience, these posts are usually for people with more experience than this entry-level gal. So far I haven’t found any I’m qualified for, but it’s a good one to check.

There are many more, some that are job or region specific, and I’ve just gone over the ones I’ve used. Put your favorites and why in the comments.

December is a rough month

While I normally love December because of the fact that somehow there’s chocolate everywhere and people try to be nicer to others, it is a terrible time for job applications. Employers focus on their families and friends and crap like that and they don’t post or respond to job openings. I’ve been looking at the same four posts since November 21st.

Strangely there are a ton of posts for unpaid internships, maybe they think we’re desperate in the cold winter months, and they might be right. I saw a post for two hours a week, for a month. Yeah, that seems worth it.

Anyway, the point is that this dark, gloomy month isn’t conducive for ending unemployment. There is good news, January is right around the corner. In January employers are excited for a fresh start and begin looking for new faces to join their team. So I’m going to think of December as a bit of a break. I’m still going to look at the normal sites to see if anything has changed, but I’m not going to worry about it as much.

Enjoy the lights, time with family and the free food at all the parties you’re going to attend. Also if you celebrate holidays were gifts are called for, maybe spend some time online shopping. Stores are far too busy and stressful this time of year. I’m getting off track.

 

Waiting

A few months ago I talked about the “No Response” from employers. This isn’t when you’re told you haven’t received a job, this is when you get no response at all after applying and interviewing. It’s a terrible limbo where you begin to imagine yourself working and excelling at the job, but you also can’t let yourself get too emotionally invested. That job is a cat and you are Schroedinger, at this point it doesn’t matter what happens you just need to know if you should be disposing of a dead cat.

The good and smart thing to do in this moment in time is to not think about the job. Just go about your business, eat, sleep, drink and buy a new cat, everything is normal. Keep applying so it feels like just another day. That is what the smart thing to do is. From reading these posts you should know by now I don’t always choose the smart option. Why did I buy a six-pack of Pumpkin Spice Blue Moon? Why do I go on Pet Finder and read all the sad stories when I know I can’t have an animal? Because I don’t like to make things easy for myself.

So instead of pretending like I didn’t have an interview two days ago and still haven’t heard anything, I start to imagine what I’ll need to wear to the new job and if it calls for a shopping trip. Is it in a new city or state? Then I’m probably thinking about how many boxes I’ll need to buy in the next few weeks. I even go over what I’m going to tell my current employers, and worry they’ll be mad. This is the unhealthy way to handle the waiting game, but by gum I can’t help but torture myself.

You see, I’m a planner, always have been always will. I’m the friend that texts you a week before we have plans to lock them down so I can mentally map out my week and make sure I’m prepared for everything. This is not a good quality for someone fresh out of college and mostly unemployed to have, but hey you work with the cards you’re dealt with. I can’t turn off my little planner voice that works overtime when there’s a potential life change on the horizon. So here I am, planning my imaginary and awesome new life at a job I don’t have yet.

The unknown is scary to everyone but especially someone that plans dinner a week in advance, thanks for these genes, mom. I’m just a high strung girl in a low strung world. Yeah I feel weird about that sentence too, but it’s staying in!

Applications

When I was applying to my first job eight years ago I drove around town and filled out paper applications at any place that would have me. I didn’t have a resume or job experience, I just went in and asked for an application.

This is pretty out of character for me seeing as I get nervous calling to order a pizza, luckily the guys down the street know my order so I don’t have to say much, but it’s just what you did in 2006. It was nice to sit down and talk to store owners and see what they were looking for and make a case for myself in person.

These days everything is digital, which I as an introvert really appreciate but it makes applying so tedious and boring. Attaching resume and cover letter and checking boxes to confirm that I’m a white female citizen. It gets really exciting when even though you’ve uploaded a cover letter they ask you to manually fill in a form. Call me crazy but you would think that in 2014 we would have the technology to pull information from a document and plug it into a form online, but hey what do I know?

So here I go, plugging in the same information I already wrote, edited and formatted in a word document you can access online. Yes I realize I can copy and paste things but that isn’t easy or efficient either.

The worst part is thinking about the position while you’re plugging in all the details of your life. I aways go over everything in my head and start to imagine myself doing the work and loving it. This of course leads to thinking that I shouldn’t get excited about it because I probably won’t be chosen anyway and I’ll just be disappointed. Then comes the mini pep talk to remind myself that I’m worth it and deserve any job I could want. So after that emotional roller coaster the application is submitted and I need a snack.

I’m nostalgic for the days when I could walk into the local pizza store with no experience or education and talk about my love of toppings and cheese and get awarded the job.

Cover Letters

When I see “please attach or copy and paste a cover letter” I read “tell me why you’re better than the 100 other people who applied for this position in 500 words or less, no pressure.” It’s terrifying, and I hate it.

You would think I would love cover letters because I’m a writer and should enjoy writing about myself. Well you would be wrong. I guess that’s it’s nice to send more than a resume and explain why you only worked somewhere for three months, and I guess it’s nice to explain what you really did at a job. So it can be a good way to set yourself apart from everyone else who has the exact same qualifications as you.

But I still hate it. I get it but I hate it.

It’s incredibly nerve-wracking, but you have to do it. I have one stock cover letter that has my basic job experience outlined but I end up going back through and changing everything for each open position anyway, so each application ends up taking 15 or 20 minutes. I always get excited when I see an application that only asks for a resume but that makes me nervous at the same time because a resume is easier to overlook.

It’s a vicious cycle that is seemingly never ending, but there isn’t really a better way to do things. Basically I just have to suck it up and do it but I would rather write a post complaining about how much I hate cover letters than actually write a cover letter. I guess I can’t avoid it for long seeing as I’m getting to the end of this post. Ugh, okay I’ll get back to applying.

Quarter-Life Crisis

Lately a lot of my friends have used the phrase “quarter-life crisis” to describe how it feels to graduate college and be further away from knowing what you want to do than when you started college. The phrase started as a joke, but it seems to be something my friends are taking more seriously.

Though it seems dramatic and entitled, there isn’t a term for exactly what we’re experiencing post-college. We don’t yet have a name for this feeling. As I talked about in my post about millenials, people my age are in a unique situation. A college degree doesn’t guarantee you a career immediately after graduation. So a lot of us are finding us graduated and confused, thus the quarter-life crisis.

I’ve heard it from friends who have full-time jobs, friends who are still looking for work and even my most “put-together” friend. Maybe this comes from the fact that there aren’t any jobs out there so we have to find work in fields we don’t like. Maybe it’s because we have too many options and can’t find something to commit to.

Whatever the reason, it’s clear that no one really has a plan anymore. So what does this mean? Is my generation going to be working multiple part-time jobs our entire lives, or are we going to create new and interesting careers out of things we’re good at? I am sincerely hoping for the latter seeing as I am smack dab in the middle of my own quarter-life crisis.

What is a Millennial?

Millennial is a buzz word. Technically it means anyone 18-35, but it has different meanings for different people. For some it is an annoying teenager who doesn’t know how to interact in the real world. For others it is a huge group of people to advertise to with hash tags and jump cuts. But for me and my friends, it’s us. I am a millennial in the technical sense of the word and the stereotypical. I love social media and Apple products. I watch a lot of Netflix and YouTube and I have been out of college for a year and am still working two part time jobs.

I’m not saying this is true of all millennials. I have many friends who have high-paid full-time jobs. Who are working at the careers they went to school for and want to stay in. However, for most of us, that isn’t a reality. This isn’t just my inside experience, it has been talked about. It’s more okay for millennials to live with their parents or work shitty part time jobs to make rent. It’s not that we don’t want to be successful, it’s that we have different dreams than past generations.

My parents went to school to be teachers. When they graduated they got teaching jobs. They didn’t have an “off year” where they watched court shows and job searched. They did what everyone else did, worked hard in college and started their careers. It isn’t that easy anymore for a few reasons.

It started with the economic crash. Employers were cutting back right when millennials started to enter the “real world.” It wasn’t just that people weren’t hiring, but people older than us who were laid off from a career during the crash were not reentering the job market. For the first time in a long time we weren’t only competing against our peers but also our parents and siblings and aunts and uncles. There are less jobs and way more competition.

But that didn’t crush the hopes of millennials because we are such a hopeful generation. We created other jobs from bloggers, to YouTubers, to social media consultants. Fresh out of college, it became clear that our options were more limited than when our parents entered the working world, so we started to find our own way. The biggest trick with manufacturing a career from nothing is waiting to get paid for what we’re created. So we end up living back at home or working at Target while we try to take our passions and skills and turn them into careers.

At the end of the day, millennials are in a pretty rough situation but we’re making the most of it. You better believe we’re not going to settle.

How to: Survive a 14-hour day

Graduating college might mean that you have to work two or three jobs to make ends meet. Sometimes those jobs work together and you can have a life outside of work, but more often than not that’s not the case and you’ll find yourself in the middle of a 14 hour day. The more of them you do, the easier it will get, but until then here are some tips for getting through a marathon day.

Tip 1: Snacks. A key part to keeping up your energy is lots of snacks. Legally you should have designated meals throughout the day, and those are very important to, but I’m talking about in between meals. You want to bring things that will stave off the hanger at 2 pm. This can be anything you like. You can go for something healthy or stick with comfort food to keep yourself happy.

Tip 2: Make a game. Say you work in retail and you’ve folded the same shirt thirteen times in four hours, that could become tedious. Pretend the president called you to say a meteor is heading toward North America and the only way to stop it is to fold all the shirts on the table in two minutes. Or imagine each shirt is work ten points and getting 500 points means you can go home.

Tip 3: Caffeine. Drink it and love it. I’m not a coffee drinker so I opt for tea or if I’m really desperate soda. Nothing puts a pep in your step like more sugar than should be legal.

There is no formula for getting through a long day, but practice makes perfect.

 

Interviews

I recently picked up a book called Interviewing for Dummies. I don’t know if I’m necessarily a dummy on the topic, but it was free and if being in college taught me anything it was to never walk away from something free.

Flipping through the book it had your typical tips like “look employers in the eye,” “never talk poorly about former employers” and “don’t ask about money.” Then ones you would think wouldn’t need to be shared like “take a shower,” “don’t insult anyone” and “don’t spit on the interviewer.”

For the most part I didn’t find it useful, then I came to the last section about selling yourself. I’m terrible at talking about what I’m good at, but that’s how you get the job. No one is going to have confidence in someone who doesn’t have confidence in herself.

I think this is a tricky thing because we’re not supposed to boast about ourselves, especially as women. (Sorry guys, I know many of you have the same feeling but I’ve noticed it more with women.) If you’re modest and humble, you’re cute and sweet. If you’re vocal and proud of your achievements you’re stuck up. I don’t exactly know where this feeling comes from, my parents never told me not to talk about myself, nor did my teachers. I think I learned early on that boasting is ugly, but now I’ve come to realize that the people who do it get what they want.

The book didn’t get into any of this, it mostly outlined certain phrases to use to market yourself, but I think it’s something important to talk about if you’re looking for a job, especially as a young woman. There is a huge difference between being proud and confident and being a jerk, and we all know people from both sides of that equation. I know I’m getting past that mental block of needing to me meek and understated. It won’t get what I want and life will be extremely boring that way. At the end of the day with interviews, all you can do is be yourself and be honest.

The other week I had my first truly honest interview, because that’s what the man interviewing me asked for. I told him honestly what my skills are (writing complete sentences, looking at Facebook) and where I see myself in five years (writing complete sentences, looking at Facebook). For the first time, I felt really good after an interview, like I had been entirely myself and the interviewer and I had connected. I was wrong because he never called me back. It would seem that being completely yourself isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

At the end of the day the only thing an interview can do is tell you and the employer if you could work together. Nothing else really matters.