Career Trajectory:

Now to read more about making my resume reflect my skills and goals and “career trajectory.” I didn’t think it was necessary to graph it out, but according to the various experts on the various career sites, it is essential.  I thought it was a given that people would like to have a job (if they must) and then to get a better job, or move up in the job. The line would just go up in any career trajectory.  What if my “career trajectory” was snaky shaped, going up and down? At least it would stand out as unique.  Should I attach a graph of my calculated career trajectory when I email out my resume?
I also read that apparently potential employers are so skeevy that they are perusing my facebook page for too much information, such as; whether or not i support big business or drink beer with my friends over the weekend.  There are tons of tips for how to be more marketable, all of which are either ridiculously obvious, or cost money (go to grad school), are fancy terms for know-the-right-people (networking) or are a pointless waste of time and a big distraction from actually finding gainful employment (such as the monster.com career mapping tool).  Trying to follow the proper jargon and be a “strategic” job seeker, yet so many of the free tools at my disposal are only sly marketing techniques to keep me on a specific website for a longer amount of time, in the hopes that I will somehow affect their popularity and hence revenue stream. Probably more effective just to build up my general knowledge and self-esteem by visiting freerice.org instead.

I want to genuinely wish good things for all. I insist, I do.  Whatever anyone does that I might consider wrong or unethical, I can usually allow them the benefit of imperfect information, lack of opportunity, or some circumstance.  I don’t look at success as a specific thing.  One way of life isn’t better than another. A person with a higher degree, working at an international non-profit isn’t more successful than someone making a home and garden.  And, as humans, we sometimes want it all.  We want to be a pirate, and a banker, a virgin and a slut.  You can see it in the way we love to watch life acted out.  You can see it in our glee for Halloween.  But, we can’t have it all.  It’s a lie to say that we can.  If we stretch ourselves too thin, things fall apart.  We, instead, need to find depth in the things that we have.
I have trouble applying my same philosophy to myself.  I feel as though I need to do and have it all.  And when I fail at any one thing, I fall apart.  It lacks logic, and I’m trying to get over this.  One major thing that stands in the way: Facebook.  The inevitable peering into others’ lives, their perfect captured picture moments.  You can see all kinds of people, living in seeming success in all different occupations, locations and walks of life.  Mostly, people will not post their bad days, so the impression that we get, of their lives, is a bit skewed towards the positive perfect, greener lawns.
I don’t want to compare myself to these people, these friends.  And I want to see what is happening in their lives. BUT, I can fall into a negative space about my own worth when I am feeling like I don’t have anything going, like I have fallen off the train and I seem to see them passing my by waving with forty’s in their fingers.  It’s hard in this society to remember that my worth is not only determined by my job, when that is the constant question people ask. Oh, and “other peoples’ lives are more interesting, cause they ain’t mine.”

The land is poisoned and the people are in charge.  And any job that would take me is part of a big bad machine that holds nobody responsible for the pro-profit choices that are anti-human and adding to all the BAD in the world. There is so much risk in consuming, it’s all hidden behind positive images and music even.  And oppression cannot be spoken about because a dialogue almost simultaneously conveys appropriation to many many (human) creatures.  And there are positive things that are just hiding or hard to find…

There is also something about the breaks you can take.  They can be lethal to your success. I think, in general, most job searchers are pretty focused on the task, or at least, feel anxiety and stress during any breaks that they do take, because the general stance is that unemployed people have all the time in the world, and should have time to catch up on hobbies and correspondence and such.  That is not the case.  I feel like any time spent on something other than job searching should be spent on “acquiring marketable skills” (you can tell by that phrase how much time I’ve spent in this system) or guilt for not searching for a job and being a worthless burden.  Since the breaks I allow myself should be short, I make/get/refill coffee cups, or spend them glued to my computer, afraid to leave the desk area for the guilt.  Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of positive messages to receive for the job searcher searching the internet.  There are news sited to warn you and frighten you about the doom of the world (and the job market), there are shopping sited for all sorts of things you can’t buy because you have no money, Craigslist which is a complete waste of time for anyone unemployed (more about this later), blogs and advice sites, resume building sites, Youtube (not my particular vice), and the cream de la cream; Facebook (and the like).

Yesterday, it was receiving another rejection.  And this was a rejection that was worded with such care.  Part of the reason i felt this blow with such force was that it was personal.  The rejection letter came from a former college roommate.  Really, I wasn’t qualified for the job, and I didn’t suppose I would get it, but I thought I would try.  Job searching makes you have to value yourself, and if you are unqualified you have less value.  If you are unemployed, you need to convince people that you have tremendous value, while realizing that in the job market you really have no value while unemployed.  The job market of course is not the whole world, but  it does feel like most of it when you are trying to enter it and spend all day using it’s currency. Getting a rejection letter from a former roommate who seems to be doing well moving up in the world is like seeing your least favorite ex waving to you from an air conditioned jaguar when you are picking up trash in one of those forced community service orange vests by the side of the highway in extreme heat.

Today, the last straw was receiving yet another scam.  Oh, how worthless that makes me feel!  I saw an ad for something generic, probably admin assistant, and the position was something that I was qualified for.  Of course I tried to look up the company by the name, and sent out my cover letter and resume, hoping to hear back. The next day, a new message in my inbox!  What could it be?  I started reading, realizing with excitement that this wasn’t a rejection! But then came the typical scam information: I am traveling at the moment, I want you to pick up my package, and I am willing to pay you a ton of money.  The scams are worse then rejections, because they make me feel so worthless and stupid for falling for a scam in the first place and wasting time and energy on them.  It is hard to tell them apart from real offers because they don’t say all the nonsense until you have sent a resume/response to the initial posting which seems valid enough apart from the vagueness of the company name and location (which very occasionally real offers are vague about too!).

unemployed to the max

I’ve stopped counting the days.  I have been unemployed that long.  People thankfully mostly have realized not to ask about my condition, but, then again, I don’t go out much.  Like others in my situation, my whole day revolves around my computer.  Searching, searching, tweaking cover letters and resumes for specific jobs, searching some more, checking emails.  Clicking and clacking keys.