Nope, I’m not getting any responses to my resume. But the good news is that for the first time, I’m thinking about the jobs that I’m meant to do, not just picking among jobs that are available.
In his State of the Union Address, President Obama said that for all the success stories he'd heard about how the economy was turning around, he also knew of people who 'sent out resumes every day and got no response'. At that moment I thought he was speaking of me. Before I moved to my town, I truly imagined that as soon as I started sending out resumes in December, I'd have a job. I thought for sure I'd be starting my new career in January. I'd visualized the job I wanted, 'getting the call', even going to work, or better yet, working from my computer at home.The reality has been quite different. It is now quickly closing on the end of January and I have not received one positive response to the resumes I've sent out, the jobs I've applied to, the online job boards I've joined. What I have received are daily emails from resume writing services, resume distribution services, services that promise to put my resume in the hands of recruiters, or to help me write a cover letter that will land job offers with just 'one magic line' that apparently the other thousands applying for the same job are missing.
The worst thing about the job hunt is the toll is takes on my self-esteem. I have an MBA that I earned with a 3.9 GPA. I've been an Assistant Vice President for a Japanese Investment Bank, I've taught overseas, and worked in Commercial Real Estate, and yet, day after day I wonder if at 47 I am too old to be hired for the jobs I've applied for, or if the diversity of my work background is actually working against me. This morning I woke up at 5am. This is what happens when I've got a lot on mind, I wake hours early and then the flood of worrying thoughts begin. I try to counter them with positive thoughts or prayer, and if that doesn't work, I turn on the morning news and let the white noise cover the chatter in my head.
